The “Maintenance and Evolution of the Copernicus Apps for Mobile Devices” contract successfully completed

The Consortium which developed one the most downloaded ESA mobile apps shared project results in a final presentation

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During a final presentation held online on the 10th of November, the Consortium led by Solenix and composed by Progressive Systems, Qualteh JR, Terrasigna and GISAT presented the results achieved over the last three years in the frame of the ESA/ESRIN contract “Maintenance and Evolution of the Copernicus Apps for Mobile Devices”. The project kicked off back in 2017, has rebranded and upgraded the Copernicus Sentinel App which enables users to track the Copernicus Sentinels satellites in real-time, discover their key elements, read the latest news and learn more about their products. Downloaded and installed on more than 56k devices, the Copernicus Sentinel App is one of the most successful ESA mobile apps as of today. Such a success is given by the fact that the Consortium delivered 16 different versions of the App over the years including newer functionalities which were able to increasingly meet the needs of both a specialized and general audience. As a proof of this transversal interest, the Copernicus Office used the App for diverse promotional and educational purposes. At the same time, its features would also allow more expert users to download Sentinel data on one’s device and trigger a processing of the products from the App.

The latest update of the app released on the 29th of October is available free of charge on the Apple store and Google Play and allows users to:

• Track the different Copernicus Sentinels directly from your position and with your phone;

• Browse new products for Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-5P through the search feature;

• Download the different Sentinel products directly on the computer (Windows or Mac). Users just need to install the Sentinel Download manager on their computer and select which data want to download from the App. The software and all the instructions to set up the Download Manager are available here;

• Visualize atmospheric layers from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts – ECMWF such as Carbon Monoxide, Methylene Oxide, Nitrogen, Ozone and Sulfur Dioxide.

In parallel to the evolution of the Copernicus Sentinel App, two new prototypes were also developed: The Copernicus Eye and the Copernicus Dashboard. The former represents a more modern version of My Vegetation App, the app dedicated to promoting the ESA PROBA-V mission providing information on vegetation as seen from space. The Copernicus Eye extends its functionalities to variables other than the vegetation ones such as land, atmospheric and ocean information provided by the Copernicus Services. The latter includes features similar to the Copernicus Sentinel App’s ones but on a web-based solution, readily available from a browser and targeting ESA internal users.

Given its experience and knowledge of ESRIN, in this frame Progressive Systems played an important role as Customer’s interface, collecting requirements and specifications emerging from ESA end users’ needs to be included in future developments of the apps. The company was also in charge of the software independent testing and validation according to defined guidelines to ensure a proper functioning of the apps.

While the maintenance of the current features of the Copernicus Sentinel App will be guaranteed over the coming period under a new contract with ESOC, the successful outcomes of the project may open up promising horizons for new developments to be explored in the future.

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