Copernicus Open Access Hub is closing at the end of October 2023

[Lurker]

Copernicus Open Access Hub is closing at the end of October 2023.

Copernicus Sentinel data are now fully available in the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem

As previously announced in January the Copernicus Open Access Hub service continued its full operations until the end of June 2023, followed up by a gradual ramp-down phase until September 2023. The Copernicus Open Access Hub will be exceptionally extended for another month and will cease operations at the end of October 2023. To continue accessing Copernicus Sentinel data users will need to self-register on the new Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem. A guide for migration is available here.
The new service offers access to a wide range of Earth observation data and services as well as new tools, GUI and APIs to help users explore and analyse satellite imagery. Discover more about the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem at https://dataspace.copernicus.eu .

A system of platforms to access EO data
The Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem will be the main distribution platform for data from the EU Copernicus missions. Instant access to full and always up-to-date Earth observation data archives is supported by a new, more intuitive browser interface, the Copernicus Browser.

Since 2015, the Copernicus Open Access Hub supports direct download of Sentinel satellite data for a wide range of operational applications by hundreds of thousands of users through the last decade. However, technology has moved on and the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem was recently launched as a new system of platforms for accessing Sentinel data. As part of this process, the current access point will be gradually wound down from July 2023 and will no longer operate from end of October 2023.

This post demonstrates how to migrate your workflow from accessing the data through the Copernicus Open Access Hub to using APIs via the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem. In this post, we will show you how to:

setup your credentials
use OData to search the Catalog and download Sentinel-2 L2A Granules in .SAFE Format.
search, discover and download gridded Sentinel-2 L2A data using the Process API
Increase in data quality, quantity and accessibility
With the glut of free and open data in recent years, the increases in revisit times and higher spatial and temporal resolutions, applications using earth observation data have blossomed. For example, before 2013, you would likely have used Landsat 8 data for land cover mapping with a revisit time of 16 days at 30m spatial resolution. In 2023 though, we now have access to Sentinel-2 with a revisit time of 3-5 days at 10m resolution enabling you not just to map land cover but monitor changes at higher spatial and temporal resolutions.

Therefore, while it was feasible to download, process and analyse individual acquisitions in the past, this approach is no longer effective today and it makes more sense to process data in the cloud. This is where the new APIs provided by the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem come in.

official page:

https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/

 

[GeorgeRap]

As technology advances and AI becomes more sophisticated, there is a growing concern that GIS analysts might be replaced by AI algorithms. What are your thoughts on this potential shift? Will AI be able to match the expertise and intuition of human analysts in the field of Geographic Information Science?