EnMAP successfully completed its Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP)!

After acquisition of the mission reference orbit on April 9, 2022, EnMAP successfully completed its Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) on April 14, 2022.

The satellite operations are proven to be safe, the X-band downlink is verified using housekeeping data, and all launch locks are released. The activation of the instrument’s thermal control system has shown to be in particular challenging. The thermal control system for the Visible and Near InfraRed (VNIR) camera is already successfully activated. As a first step of the subsequent commissioning phase, the thermal control system of the ShortWave InfraRed (SWIR) camera now has to be activated prior to first execution of Earth observations and calibration acquisitions.