Big Data Issues under the Copernicus Programme

The Copernicus Programme of Earth observation satellites (http://copernicus.eu) will be affected by a growing volume of data and information. The first satellite (Sentinel 1A) has just been launched. Seven additional satellites are to be launched by the end of the decade. These will produce 8 TB of data per day, i.e. considerably more than can be downloaded via normal Internet connections.

There is no definitive answer to the many challenges of big data but there are gradual solutions for Copernicus in view of the progressive roll out of the space infrastructure and the thematic services which the European Commission will develop.

This presentation will present several approaches to the big data issue. It will start from the needs of the Copernicus users, which are far from being homogeneous. As their needs are different, the European Commission and ESA will have to propose different solutions to fulfil these needs, taking into account the present and future state of technology. The presentation will discuss these solutions, both with regard to a better use of the network and with regard to hosted processing.