Funding by: ESA
Funding ID: E/E320-01 - G/S Development   
Project executing or management agency: ESA
Funding period: 09/2023 – 09/2030 
Project partners: DLR (Germany), Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam GF German Research Centre for Geoscience (Germany), ACRI-ST (France), University of Valencia (Spain), Telespazio (France), University of Zurich (Switzerland), NPL (United Kingdom), Planetek (Italy) and CzechGlobe (Czech Republic).

The activity aims at developing and delivering several operational processors for the "Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment" also called CHIME that will be used by the Agency to generate Level-2A (or Level 2S) and Level-2B data. CHIME is one of the candidate missions and is currently undergoing industrial Phase B2/C/D.These processors must be delivered under Open-Source public domain licensing (Apache 2.0) and support their integration into the Copernicus Expansion Mission Product Algorithm Laboratory (CEM-PAL).

For the development and consolidation of each of these operational processors, each of them has the same set of objectives:

• Selection and definition of the algorithms to be implemented to retrieve the corresponding level products and to improve these algorithms over the whole duration of the project.
• Development of a prototype used as a precursor and to test any evolution of the algorithms prior to their implementation into the Operation Processors and therefore into the CHIME Ground Segment.
• Definition of Cal/Val activities to assess the processors performance and the quality of the L2 products before the CHIME launch, during the commissioning phase and during the routine operations.
• Support the engagement of a user community and facilitate their use of CHIME L2 products by developing open-source library modules such that they can process products themselves and incorporate new algorithms and processing routines.

The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences is responsible for the development of the L2B soil and mineral modules. Both L2B modules focus on the retrieval of the CHIME high priority products soil organic carbon (SOC) and kaolinite abundance. We also contribute to delivery relevant test data and L2B validation activities.