THE VENµS MISSION: A TOOL FOR THE SCIENTISTS, A CONTRIBUTION TO PREPARE THE NEXT GENERATION OF SENTINEL 2

The VENµS mission is the result of cooperation between France and Israel. The satellite carries a super-spectral camera characterized by 12 narrow spectral bands ranging from 415 nm to 910 nm. The main features of VENµS are a 2-days revisit time, 27 km swath, a camera resolution of 5.3 m, and the capability to observe any site at constant view angle and local time.

VENµS mission was launched on August 1^st, 2017, and the commissioning phase ended on March 2018.

We will first present a brief history of the mission concept and of its scientific motivations. We will then detail the scientific objectives and preliminary results. Briefly, the general objectives of the VENµS mission are the provision of data for scientific studies dealing with the monitoring, analysis, and modeling of land surface functioning under the influences of environmental factors as well as human activities.

The last part of the presentation will be devoted to the possible role of VENµS data for improving or validating the algorithms applied to Sentinel-2 data and especially the usefulness of VENµS for the preparation of the next generation of Sentinel-2. One of the questions raised by the users regarding Sentinel-2 is the possibility of increasing the revisit period in order to limit the impact of cloud-coverage on the applications and to capture rapid phenomena. VENµS is clearly the right tool to explore the benefit of an increased revisit of Sentinel-2 Next Generation.