PROBA-V Level-1 Data

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PROBA-V Collection 2 Level 1C data are radiometrically corrected segments, not projected, Top-Of-Atmosphere reflectance values. The data have their native spatial resolution.

Level-1C Data access

Level-1C algorithm and data

The two main processing steps to obtain the Level-1C products are:

Geometric processing

Using the Level 1A raw and uncompressed data, a geolocation step is performed for each satellite position to determine the latitude and longitude of the observed pixel. The satellite position and velocity are interpolated for each scan line using an orbital propagation model. The geolocation accuracy is refined using the geometric Instrument Calibration Parameters (ICP) file . The ICP file contains the variation in detector viewing direction relative to the time out of eclipse and the Sun beta angle. The geometric processing model additionally calculates the viewing and solar zenith angles (VZA and SZA, respectively), which are required for further processing. The output of the geometric processing is the Level-1B data. The user is referred to Products User Manual for further details on the geometric processing model. See also the Absolute Location Error and the Inter-band Geolocation Accuracy plots.

Radiometric processing

The radiometric processing converts the digital number count at a certain spectral band (DN) into physical TOA reflectance values. First, the DN number is corrected for detector nonlinearities, dark currents, and inter-pixel non-uniformities. Second, these numbers are converted to at-sensor radiance L [W m-2 µm -1 sr-1 ], using the band-specific calibration coefficients derived from the radiometric ICP file. Finally, the TOA radiance L at a given spectral band is converted into TOA band reflectance using:

RTOA = (p x d² x L) / (Eo x cos(qs))

With RTOA the obtained TOA reflectance value [-], d the Earth – Sun distance [AU], Eo the mean exo-atmospheric irradiance at the specific spectral band [W m-2 µm-1 ], with values from Thuillier et al. (2003), and ϑs the solar zenith angle [degrees]. The output of the radiometric processing are the Level 1C data.

Level-1C Quality assurance

For Level 1C files, the quality is indicated by the Q Dataset, which is located in the LEVEL 1C STRIP Group (see Products User Manual Section 6.1 for more details). The pixel quality for the Level 1C data is decoded as 8-bit unsigned integers, the values and their meaning are given in the Products User Manual.

A Quality Webpage is available and provides information on the Quality Assessment and the various methods applied to maintain PROBA-V’s data quality at the highest possible level, from the raw satellite observations through the value-added products available at the PROBA-V Data Portal.

Dataset specifications

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
European Space Agency, 2023, PROBA-V Level-1C Data, Collection 2,
https://doi.org/10.5270/PRV-xw3omb1

Spatial coverage: 75°N, 56°S, 180°W, 180°E
Temporal coverage: 2013-10-16 – 2020-06-30
Mission status: Complete
Orbit type: Sun-synchronous
Data Citation
European Space Agency, 2023, PROBA-V Level-1C Data, Collection 2,
https://doi.org/10.5270/PRV-xw3omb1

Our Applications and Help

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Agriculture

For years, global food security has been at the forefront as one of the most pressing development targets. According to the FAO, food production around the world has to grow by more than 70% if we want to achieve food for all in 2050. Both public and private organizations bear a huge responsibility to raise food production in a sustainable way. Remote Sensing and especially satellite missions delivering daily global observations, like PROBA-V, are crucial to monitor the status of crops worldwide and predict yields.

Land Use / Land Cover

Land is an essential natural resource - for humanity and all terrestrial ecosystems. But while resources are strictly finite, human demands are not. Today, this leads to events such as deforestation, soil degradation and the loss of wildlife. PROBA-V, the small satellite for global observations, helps monitor and map the extent and dynamics of land cover and land use.

Climate

Global daily satellite observations are indispensable to monitor the driving forces of climate change, arguably the largest and most challenging problem our society is facing. Additionally, remote sensing serves to monitor the effects of climate change, e.g. changes in land cover and land use. Hereto PROBA-V satellite imagery with low spatial resolution but delivering daily global coverage is invaluable.

Coastal

Although PROBA-V is designed as a land mission, the good image quality provides opportunities to extend its applications to coastal waters. By applying a dedicated atmospheric correction above water we can derive information on the turbidity of the water and the suspended sediment concentration. Combining these turbidity and suspended sediment products from PROBA-V with products from other typical Ocean Colour sensors allows for better monitoring of turbidity in dynamic near shore areas and it increases the chance to detect short term events in particular for areas with rapid changing cloud cover.

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Collection 2 Products User Manual

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the SNAP PROBA-V Toolbox

consists of a rich set of visualisation, analysis and processing tools for the exploitation of the VEGETATION instrument. As a multi-mission remote sensing toolbox, it also supports the Sentinel missions, Envisat (MERIS & AATSR), ERS (ATSR), SMOS as well as third party data from MODIS (Aqua and Terra), Landsat (TM), ALOS (AVNIR & PRISM) and others. The various tools can be run from an intuitive desktop application or via a command-line interface. A rich application programming interface allows for development of plugins using Java or Python.