Copernicus Sentinel-3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR)
The European Commission, in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), began an ambitious Earth observation initiative called Copernicus to monitor the state of global environment and address climate-change issues. As part of this initiative, ESA developed a series of satellite missions that are called Sentinels. The Sentinel-3 series includes four missions, two, 3A and 3B, that are operationally active, and two, 3C and 3D, that await their launches in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Sentinel-3A was launched on February 16th 2016 and Sentinel-3B was launched on April 25th 2018. Both are multi-instrument platforms that focus on ocean surface topography as well as land and sea surface temperature. Each platform carries the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR), the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI), as well as a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and a Microwave Radiometer (MWR).
The SLSTR instrument was developed to continue and extend measurements made by the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) instruments aboard the European Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites 1 and 2 and the Advanced ATSR on Envisat. The SLSTR has 9 bands covering the visible, shortwave infrared, and thermal infrared areas of the spectrum.
Links:
- Search for Copernicus Sentinel-3A SLSTR Products
- Search for Copernicus Sentinel-3B SLSTR Products
- Copernicus Sentinel-3 Data Terms and Conditions
- Sentinel-3 SLSTR User Guide
- Sentinel-3 SLSTR Technical Guide
- Copernicus Sentinel-3
Technical Specifications
| Orbit: | 815 km, 10:00 am. mean local solar time. sun-synchronous, polar |
| Repeat Cycle: | 27 days |
| Swath Dimensions: | 1420 km, global coverage every 4 days |
| Weight: | 1250 kg |
| Spatial Resolution: | 0.5 km Vis/SWIR @ nadir 1 km TIR @ nadir |
| Quantization: | 10 bits |
| Field of View | 68.5 deg |
| Wavebands | 9 bands selectable across range: 0.555 µm to 10.85 µm |
Design Life: Duration: |
5 years operational |
| Operator: | EUMETSAT |
Channels (Bands)
| Band | λ centre (μm) | Width (μm) | Function | Comments | Res. (m) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | 0.555 | 0.02 | Cloud screening, vegetation monitoring, aerosol | Visible Near IR | Solar reflectance bands | 500 | |
| S2 | 0.659 | 0.02 | NDVI, vegetation monitoring, aerosol | ||||
| S3 | 0.865 | 0.02 | NDVI, cloud flagging, Pixel co-registration | ||||
| S4 | 1.375 | 0.015 | Cirrus detection over land | Short-Wave IR | |||
| S5 | 1.61 | 0.06 | Cloud clearing, ice, snow, vegetation monitoring | ||||
| S6 | 2.25 | 0.05 | Vegetation state and cloud clearing | ||||
| S7 | 3.74 | 0.38 | SST, LST, Active fire | Thermal infra-red Ambient bands (200 K - 320 K) | 1000 | ||
| S8 | 10.85 | 0.9 | SST, LST, Active fire | ||||
| S9 | 12 | 1 | SST, LST | ||||
| F1 | 3.74 | 0.38 | Active fire | Thermal infra-red fire emission bands | |||
| F2 | 10.85 | 0.9 | Active fire | ||||
Source: Sentinel Users Guide