Spaceborne imaging spectroscopy is undergoing a rapid expansion with a new generation of missions in recent years. Following the Hyperion (2000) and HICO (2009) missions, new spaceborne imaging spectroscopy missions have recently started operating: DESIS (2018), PRISMA (2019), HISUI (2019) and more recently EnMAP (2022) and EMIT (2022). These missions face the common challenge of providing accurate spectral and radiometric results over a wide spectral range. This requires accurate instrument calibration and the validation of the results obtained. In this contribution, we provide an overview of the calibration and validation (CalVal) activities in the EnMAP mission, and we present the CalVal results that were obtained as part of the commissioning phase (April - October 2022).

Since November 2022, the PACO [1] atmospheric correction program has operated routinely as the L2A processor in the ground segment for the hyperspectral missions DESIS [2] and EnMAP [3]. Both missions monitor the Earth’s environment similar to other operational hyperspectral missions like PRISMA [4] and EMIT [5]. The Ground Segment L2A processor for the DESIS and EnMAP missions corrects the at-sensor received terrestrial reflection of the incident solar radiation for the effects of atmospheric constituents generating Bottom-Of-Atmosphere (BOA) ground reflectance spectral image cube, along with pixel-classification masks, Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) at 550 nm and Water Vapor (WV) maps. In this contribution we summarize the lessons learned on the validation of the atmospheric correction and the related uncertainty of the hyperspectral L2A products, applying the same validation criteria, for both DESIS and EnMAP.

The German Hyperspectral Satellite Mission EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program; www.EnMAP.org) is an imaging spectroscopy remote sensing mission with the primary objective to measure, derive and analyze quantitative diagnostic parameters describing key processes on the Earth’s surface (see, e.g., [1]). In this article, an overview of the EnMAP processing chain is given with a focus on the geometric processing of EnMAP data. Furthermore, the geometric performance after one year of acquisitions is assessed and presented.

The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) is a spaceborne German hyperspectral satellite mission that aims at monitoring and characterizing the Earth's environment on a global scale. The mission is now ready to start with the sensor being by end of 2021 in Flight Acceptance Review, ready to be shipped to the launch pad in early 2022. This paper presents first an update of the mission status with recent activities and developments from the space and the ground segment. Then, an update of selected highlights of the science segment activities at launch phase are presented including preparation and if possible early results for the validation of EnMAP products, updates on EnMAP science algorithms (EnMAP-Box) developed at GFZ, online education initiative (HYPERedu), and further mission support activities such as background mission.

The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) is a spaceborne German hyperspectral satellite mission that aims at monitoring and characterizing the Earth's environment on a global scale. EnMAP core themes are environmental changes, ecosystem responses to human activities, and management of natural resources. After several years delay, the instrument is finished and in the final stage of environmental characterization and assembly for a launch early 2022. This paper presents an update of the mission status and activities in the frame of the science preparation and mission support project led by the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) Potsdam. Further, this paper presents a specific focus on the planning for the independent EnMAP data product validation.

The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) is a spaceborne German hyperspectral satellite mission that aims at monitoring and characterizing the Earth's environment on a global scale. After several years delay due to a major design issue to meet the mission requirements, the mission is now back on track and planned for launch in 2021. This paper presents an update of the mission status with recent activities and developments from the space and the ground segment. Furthermore, a draft plan for the independent validation of EnMAP radiance and reflectance products was developed and will be introduced, along with highlights of the science preparatory activities in 2019 including airborne campaigns, algorithm consolidations, and HYPERedu education initiative.

EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program, www.enmap.org) is a German, Earth observing, imaging spectroscopy, spaceborne mission planned for launch in 2020. The data products will cover the spectral range from 420 nm to 2450 nm with a spectral sampling distance between 5 and 12 nm with an expected signal-to-noise-ratio of 400:1 in the visible near-infrared and 180:1 in the shortwave infrared parts of the electro-magnetic spectrum. The resulting images will cover an area of 30 km in the across- track direction with a ground sampling distance of 30 m. The across-track tilt-capability of 30° enables revisit times of less than four days. The resulting data products will be freely available to the scientific user community for measuring, deriving, and analyzing diagnostic parameters, which describe vital processes on the Earth's surface comprising agriculture, forestry, soil and geological environments, as well as coastal zones and inland waters. This work concentrates on the description of activities performed and facilities involved for the preparation of these products. It starts out by the description of the User Portals for observation requests and acquisition planning, touches the aspects of creating the time-lines, the commanding and controlling of the satellite, the downlink of the telemetry and payload data, the design of the processing chain and the archiving of data plus a set of activities flanking the above for the provision of high-quality data products.

When working with hyperspectral data, it is very important, that the data is properly pre-processed in terms of systematic radiometric and spectral correction, geometric correction as well as atmospheric correction. Airborne and spaceborne sensors show some similarities regarding the processing, but also some differences. In this paper, these similarities and differences are discussed on the example of the HySpex processing chain in the generic processing environment Catena and the EnMAP processor that is currently developed at DLR. The paper presents the different sensors and their properties and gives an overview of the different workflows and the used algorithms.

The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (En-MAP) is an spaceborne imaging spectroscopy mission under development by a consortium of German Earth Observation research institutions. The core payload of EnMAP consists of a dual-spectrometer instrument measuring in the optical spectral range between 420 and 2450 nm with a spectral sampling distance varying between 5 and 12 nm and a reference signal-to-noise ratio of 400:1 in the visible near-infrared and 180:1 in the shortwave-infrared parts of the spectrum. EnMAP images will cover a 30 km wide area in the across-track direction with a ground sampling distance of 30 m. An across-track tilted observation capability will enable a target revisit time of up to 4 days at Equator and better at high latitudes. EnMAP will contribute to the development and exploitation of spaceborne imaging spectroscopy applications by making high-quality data freely available to scientific users worldwide. In this talk we will provide an overview of the mission status including both technical developments and preparatory activities for the implementation of the EnMAP scientific program.

EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program, www.enmap.org) is a German, Earth observing, imaging spectroscopy, spaceborne mission planned for launch in 2020. This work reflects the status of the EnMAP Ground Segment, currently procuring its facilities and elements for later testing and integrating them. The Ground Segment's Design Model is discussed as well as its constituents are introduced. It further discusses the recent changes to be respected by the design covering the topics, how low quality data is handled within the Ground Segment, how the files aboard the satellite are deleted to ensure a maximum data security, and how the moon could serve as further calibration source during the EnMAP mission.

The high-resolution imaging spectroscopy remote sensing mission EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program, enmap.org) will cover the spectral range from 420 nm to 2450 nm with a spectral sampling distance varying between 5 nm and 12 nm. A smile effect, which is a spectral shift across the swath, of at most 0.2 pixels is expected. The OHB System AG realizes the satellite with the hyperspectral push-broom imager and the on-board characterization equipment including a doped sphere for spectral calibration. The Earth Observation Center (EOC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is responsible for the operational in-flight calibration and realizes the fully-automatic on-ground processors including methods for smile correction. A smile correction taking the spectral calibration into account as well as a simplified atmospheric compensation will be analyzed.

We present and analyze the methodology, architecture, and various functionalities of CODE-DE (Copernicus Data and Exploitation Platform - Deutschland, www.code-de.org) which is the German operational environment for accessing and processing Copernicus Sentinel products, a so-called Copernicus collaborative ground segment activity. Since 9 March 2017 the element for online data access to Sentinel-l and Sentinel-2 products is operational and tapped by over 650 registered users until 30 November 2017. During this period more than 47,000 products were downloaded and the global catalogue was continuously updated and includes a data volume of 800 TByte based on a rolling archive concept. Since 30 November 2017 also the element for big data processing is operational, where registered users automatically process and analyze data themselves specifically with the help of various methodologies to value-added products. Furthermore, optimizations are realized such as improved visualization of the catalogue of available Sentinel-2 products. They are presented with the catalogue client at full 10 meter resolution.

EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program) is a German spaceborne imaging spectrometer Earth observing mission planned for launch in 2019. This paper reflects the status of the mission with an focus to changes of the Ground Segment based on a major review conducted in 2016 and the EnMAP Data Exploitation and Application Development Program and recent activities.

The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) German imaging spectroscopy mission is intended to fill the current gap in space-based imaging spectroscopy data. An overview of the main characteristics and current status of the mission will be provided in this contribution. The core payload of EnMAP consists of a dual-spectrometer instrument measuring in the optical spectral range between 420 and 2450 nm with a spectral sampling distance varying between 5 and 12 nm and a reference signal-to-noise ratio of 400:1 in the visible near-infrared and 180:1 in the shortwave-infrared parts of the spectrum. EnMAP images will cover a 30 km wide area in the across-track direction with a ground sampling distance of 30 m. An across-track tilted observation capability will enable a target revisit time of up to 4 days at Equator and better at high latitudes. EnMAP will contribute to the development and exploitation of spaceborne imaging spectroscopy applications by making high-quality data freely available to scientific users worldwide.

The “High resolution temperature and spectral emissivity mapping” (HiTeSEM) initiative aims at developing a conceptual instrument design for a hyperspectral thermal satellite to find answers for the most pressing research and data requirements within the scope of Food Security and Human Health. The satellite is proposed to consist of two long-wave infrared (LWIR) sensors, (1) a hyperspectral system with ~ 75 bands at 7.2 - 12.5 μm (NEΔT of <; 0.05 K) and a ground sampling distance (GSD) of 60 m and (2) a panchromatic (PAN) LWIR high resolution imager with two bands (8.0 - 10.25 μm and 10.25 - 12.5 μm, NEΔT of ~0.06 K) but a three times higher GSD of 20 m to extend the system to regional applications where higher spatial accuracy is required. For an accurate water vapor content (CWV) estimation, which is needed for accurate atmospheric correction and temperature-emissivity separation (TES), three wavelengths within the range 7.2-7.3 μm are used. Based on the science case, key regions of interest were identified in India, Asia, Andes mountains, Mediterranean ecosystems and densely-populated as well as growing regions.

This study reports the calibration and validation activities for the Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP; www.enmap.org). EnMAP is a German imaging spectroscopy satellite mission with the declared goal to investigate the Earth's surface with a so far surpassing quality. The key scientific questions to which EnMAP will contribute are related to climate change impacts, land cover changes and processes, natural resources, biodiversity and ecosystems, water availability and quality, geohazards and risk management. The satellite operates in a sun synchronous orbit in 650 km height with a local time of the descending node set to 11:00 and an across tilt opportunity to improve the local revisit time. Two pushbroom spectrometers with 242 channels in total cover the spectral range from 420 nm to 2450 nm with a mean resolution of 6.5 nm in the visible and 10 nm in the shortwave-infrared. The ground nadir pixel size is 30 m and 1000 spatial pixels generate a swath with of 30 km. For the CalVal activities, the routine calibration is conducted within the ground segment of DLR, while the independent validation activities are lead by GFZ. Data is operationally processed on-ground to standardized calibrated products and delivered to the international user community [1]. Standardized data products will comprise radiance and reflectance products that make use of calibration information gained pre- and inflight. To ensure high quality standards, additional independent product validation activities are planned.

EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program; www.enmap.org) is a German, Earth observing, imaging spectroscopy, spaceborne mission planned for launch in 2017. In order to ensure data product standards during the complete mission lifetime operational workflows are established. These cover all activities for pre- and in-flight spectral, radiometric, and geometric characterization and calibration as well as for the independent product validation of the quality controlled images. Spectral and radiometric calibration of the hyperspectral imager covering the wavelength range from 420 nm to 2450 nm is especially based on satellite onboard sources and a full aperture diffuser. Geometric calibration and validation is based on acquisitions of selected reference sites, but also compared to further ground-truth, air-, and spaceborne missions. Standardized products including geometric and/or atmospheric corrections are generated by a fully-automatic hyperspectral image processing chain.

The future hyperspectral satellite mission EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program; www.enmap.org) will substantially improve remote sensing standard products and generate new user-driven information products on the status and evolution of different ecosystems. The launch is planned for 2016 with mission operations of five years. This paper describes the EnMAP mission and focuses on the status and challenges of how to achieve the required accuracies in geometric correction which applies the method of direct georeferencing. The pre-flight activities including simulations and measurements complement the initial and routine in-flight activities. The concepts for geometric characterization and calibration are analyzed and how thereby the absolute geo-location accuracy and the co-registration between the two spectrometers are realized in the operational on-ground processing. One spectrometer covers the spectral range from 420 nm to 1000 nm and 900 nm to 2450 nm is covered by the other one.

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are randomized search heuristics that solve problems successfully in many cases. Their behavior is often described in terms of strategies to find a high location on Earth's surface. Unfortunately, many digital elevation models describing it contain void elements. These are elements not assigned an elevation. Therefore, we design and analyze simple EAs with different strategies to handle such partially defined functions. They are experimentally investigated on a dataset describing the elevation of Earth's surface. The largest value found by an EA within a certain runtime is measured, and the median over a few runs is computed and compared for the different EAs. For the dataset, the distribution of void elements seems to be neither random nor adversarial. They are so-called semirandomly distributed. To deepen our understanding of the behavior of the different EAs, they are theoretically considered on well-known pseudo-Boolean functions transferred to partially defined ones. These modifications are also performed in a semirandom way. The typical runtime until an optimum is found by an EA is analyzed, namely bounded from above and below, and compared for the different EAs. We figure out that for the random model it is a good strategy to assume that a void element has a worse function value than all previous elements. Whereas for the adversary model it is a good strategy to assume that a void element has the best function value of all previous elements.

The Ground Segment for the future hyperspectral satellite mission EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program) will be designed, implemented and operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The Applied Remote Sensing Cluster (DFD) at DLR is responsible for the establishment of a user interface. This paper provides first issues on design and functionality of the user interface. The user interface consists of two online portals. The EnMAP portal is the central entry point for all users interested to learn about the EnMAP mission, its objectives, status, and results. The EnMAP Data Access Portal (EDAP) provides a set of functions for registered users that will support the international EnMAP user community. The operational services offered through the EnMAP portal will be complemented by a service team, EnMAP Application Support, offering expert advice on the exploitation of EnMAP data.

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is responsible for the development of prototype processors for PRISM and AVNIR-2 data under a contract of the European Space Agency. The PRISM processor comprises the radiometric correction, an optional deconvolution to improve image quality, the generation of a digital elevation model, and orthorectification. The AVNIR-2 processor comprises radiometric correction, orthorectification, and atmospheric correction over land. Here, we present the methodologies applied during these processing steps as well as the results achieved using the processors.

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are population-based randomized search heuristics that often solve problems successfully. Here the focus is on the possible effects of changing the parent population size in a simple, but still realistic, mutation-based EA. It preserves diversity by avoiding duplicates in its population. On the one hand its behavior on well-known pseudo-Boolean example functions is investigated by means of a rigorous runtime analysis. A comparison with the expected runtime of the algorithm's variant that does not avoid duplicates demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of maintaining diversity. On the other hand, newly developed functions are presented for which the optimizer considered that even a decrease of the population size by a single increment leads from efficient optimization to enormous runtime and overwhelming probability. This is proven for all feasible population sizes and thereby this result forms a hierarchy theorem. In order to obtain all these results new methods for the analysis of the EA are developed.

Surprisingly, general search heuristics often solve combinatorial problems quite sufficiently, although they do not outperform specialized algorithms. Here, the behavior of simple randomized optimizers on the maximum clique problem on planar graphs is investigated rigorously. The focus is on the worst-, average-, and semi-average-case behaviors. In semi-random planar graph models an adversary is allowed to modify moderately a random planar graph, where a graph is chosen uniformly at random among all planar graphs. With regard to the heuristics particular interest is given to the influences of the following four popular strategies to overcome local optima: local- vs. global-search, single- vs. multi-start, small vs. large population, and elitism vs. non-elitism selection. Finally, the black-box complexities of the planar graph models are analyzed.

Different fitness functions describe different problems. Hence, certain fitness transformations can lead to easier problems although they are still a model of the considered problem. In this paper, the class of neutral transformations for a simple rank-based evolutionary algorithm (EA) is described completely, i.e., the class of functions that transfers easy problems for this EA in easy ones and difficult problems in difficult ones. Moreover, the class of neutral transformations for this population-based EA is equal to the black-box neutral transformations. Hence, it is a proper superset of the corresponding class for an EA based on fitness-proportional selection, but it is a proper subset of the class for random search. Furthermore, the minimal and maximal classes of neutral transformations are investigated in detail.