Data Policy | proba-v.vgt.vito.be

This document presents the data policy, for the data subset called the “Original Products” (i.e. the 1 km resolution products) provided by the PROBA-V Exploitation Phase (“PROBA-VE”) ESA- Element of the European Earth Watch Programme

And

The data policy of the Proba-V, Belgian, national exploitation programme., for the data subset called “Medium Resolution Products” (i.e. the 1/3 km resolution products and the P products in raw spatial resolution). 

Original Products (ESA Earth Watch)

The production, archiving and the provision to the user community of the following, so called Original Products, fall under the responsibility of ESA :

Table 1: Proba-V Earth Watch Element products. All are kilometric ground resolution. These are called "Original Products" in the Proba-V Earth Watch Declaration. TOA = Top Of Atmosphere, i.e. no atmospheric correction. TOC = Top Of Canopee, i.e. atmospherically corrected.

The data policy for the Original Products will be ‘free and open’.

These products are standard, non-customisable products.

Medium Resolution Products (national)

The production, archiving and the provision to the user community of the following Medium Resolution Products, fall under the responsibility of the Belgian, national exploitation programme.

Table 2: Proba-V Medium Resolution Products. All are 1/3 km resolution (except the SWIR channel : 2/3 km).

The Medium Resolution Products are all in 1/3km spatial resolution, (except the Short Wave InfraRed channel : 2/3 km). These products can be Customised with the following options :

1.   HDF4 or GeoTIFF format instead of HDF5. (Many former SPOT-Vegetation customers are used to HDF4 and may want to continue to receive products in that format)

2.   stitching of granules for small regions of interest.

3.   Clipping the granules of P-products to a very specific, rectangular region of interest. Instead of receiving entire granules covering the region of interest + a small part outside the region of interest, the user will receive only the pixels he is interested in. So the granules at the edge of his region of interest are clipped.

4.   Selection of specific bands. e.g. only the Red band

Nominal Delivery is when the products are delivered to the user within 72 hours after downlink of the last required dataset in Kiruna. Nominal Delivery is on a best effort basis, i.e. provided that the order handling capacity and the hardware capacity of the ground segment is not overloaded.

Near Real Time Delivery is when the delivery is guaranteed within the above mentioned 72 hours timeframe.

The Original Products will always be delivered Nominally.

The Medium Resolution Products can be delivered Nominally but in that case, only products older than 1 month can be ordered. The 1 month is motivated by the fact that vegetation parameters only change considerably over a 1 month period. Medium Resolution Products can also be delivered in Near Real Time. In that case products older or younger than 1 month can be ordered and the delivery time of 72 hours (after downlink of the last required dataset) is guaranteed.

Table 3 summarises the possible delivery schemes.

Table 3 :  Delivery schemes.

(*) : Does not exist. Service not provided.

International Charter on Space and Major Disasters

An official call for Original Products or Medium Resolution Products by the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters (http://www.disasterscharter.org/home ) is subsequently referred to as Charter. The service provider can be either ESA or the Belgian, national programme, depending on the product asked for.

Proba-V Earth Watch Partners

The Proba-V Earth Watch Partners are Belgium and Luxemburg. The Data Policy for the Proba-V Earth Watch Partners is also valid for :

• all institutional users of Belgium and Luxemburg.
• all research projects (research only !) of which the Prime Investigator is based in Belgium or Luxemburg.

and, provided that these entities are officially recognised by :

For Belgium : Belspo

For Luxemburg : Luxinnovation

If such a recognised entity wants to use products for commercial purposes, he needs the permission of both Belspo and Luxinnovation.

Scientific Use

All products may be used for scientific, research purposes. If a user wants to use products for research purposes only, he can get the required products under special, more favourable conditions (seeTable 4). The use of products for research projects that are entirely funded by ESA (e.g. DUE, VAE, EOEP, GMES Space Component (GSC) if funded by ESA only) falls under Scientific Use.

The use of products by the research projects of the European Commission (FP7, Horizon2020, including research (partially) funded by EC in view of Copernicus) also falls under Scientific Use, provided they are not used and will not be used for other than research purposes (no simultaneous operational use, no operational use afterwards).

All Scientific Use projects have to indicate the total amount of products required.

If the total amount of products for Scientific Use (ESA funded project or not, including project extensions, options etc) exceeds 400 Gigabyte, then the approval by VITO and Belspo and Luxinnovation is required.

In case Original Products are used for projects that are entirely funded by ESA, ESA decides whether the products are accepted as Scientific Use. In all other cases, Scientific Use has to be approved by both Belspo and Luxinnovation.

In order to widen the scope of Scientific Use, properly motivated requests to deviate from any condition of Scientific Use can be introduced at the Programme Scientist of the Proba-V programme. This Programma Scientist will judge whether the request can be met and he will formulate a recommendation to Belspo and Luxinnovation. Belspo and Luxinnovation will finally decide. Considering and answerring such a request is on a voluntary basis, both by the Programme Scientist and by Belspo and Luxinnovation. As long as the user does not get an answer in writing, the normal conditions apply.

Data policy

The terms of use mentioned on http://www.vito-eodata.be/  are applicable to all products.

The data policy described here is restricted to Proba-V products, i.e. this data policy does not apply for any product that is based on data originating from the SPOT-Vegetation instruments. The SPOT-Vegetation data policy remains as before.

The data policy described here is only applicable to data and products for which it is theoretically possible, using a reverse algorithm, to reconstruct any of the Original Products or any of the Medium Resolution Products.

Order of handling priority :

1. Charter
2. Any paying user, Full cost High (for details, contact VITO)
3. Any paying user, Full cost Medium (for details, contact VITO)
4. Any paying user, Full cost Low (for details, contact VITO)
5. Programme Partner
6. Copernicus Use
7. Scientific Use
8. Other

Table 4: Proba-V data policy. See text for explanations and conditions for the different types of users. Blue lines = ESA. Green lines is Belgian national programme.

(1) : Only products older than 1 month. See section on Nominal Delivery and Near Real Time(NRT) delivery.

(2) : Cost borne by ESA, delivery on best effort basis.