GMES Space Component Data Access Infrastructure Development and Operations
Amans, Veronique; Martin, Jolyon
ESA, ITALY

In charge of coordinating the access to GSC data and services during the pre-Sentinels era, ESA has developed the GMES Space Component Data Access (GSCDA) infrastructure, implementing a single interface offered to GMES users for information, support and ordering and coordinated access to EO data from the various Contributing Missions.

The Coordinated Data Access System (CDS) is the Core of the infrastructure, providing data ordering, archiving and distribution functionalities. Standard interfaces developed with the GCMs allow for EO data cataloguing and re-use by different Service Providers, according to the eligibility defined by the European Commission. The CDS and GCMs interfaces were released in 2 steps, progressively implementing new features and increasing operability and reliability of the system. In the second round of implementation, the Heterogeneous Mission Accessibility (HMA) Interfaces were put in place with most GCMEs for catalogue browsing and on-line ordering from the archive.

A major upgrade is now foreseen for the Sentinel era, implementing additional requirements of the DWH. The CDS Version 3 will continue to coordinate the data offering from the GMES contributing mission whilst integrating the forthcoming Sentinel Missions, introducing new features and capabilities in an end user oriented context. The ultimate objective is to continue to enhance the coordinated overall data dissemination towards an evolving and expanding set of GMES end users.

Operations have been performed in parallel to the development for the last 4.5 years, implementing consecutively the Data Access Portfolios answering the Service Providers requirements of the Grant (2008-2011) and the DWH (2011-2014) phases. Major datasets were built up like the European HR and VHR coverages, two Africa HR coverages, the 2006 Urban Atlas, etc and large quantities of EO data were procured from 25 missions as a result of single orders from GMES users. The number of users keeps increasing, mainly as a result of the selection of new Downstream Services. A particular challenge was the set-up of the emergency service dedicated to eligible GMES Projects (SAFER then GIO-EMS, G-MOSAIC then G-SEXTANT and G-NEXT, etc), for which a 24x7 support is provided in order to identify the first post-event acquisition of interest among all available missions and search the archives for reference mapping.

The presentation will give an overview of the Infrastructure in place and the operational achievements and an outlook on the activities for the Sentinels integration into the GSC Data Access.