FLEX/S3 Tandem Mission Performance Analysis and Requirements Consolidation Study (PARCS)

Project number: 93920050

Project summary

FLEX will be the first mission designed to monitor the photosynthetic activity of the terrestrial vegetation layer by using a completely novel technique measuring the chlorophyll fluorescence signal that originates from the core of the photosynthetic machinery. This will provide a completely new possibility to assess the dynamics of actual photosynthesis through sun‐induced fluorescence, which offers a great advancement over current capabilities that can only detect potential photosynthesis as derived in passive reflectance measurements by conventional land surface monitoring satellites.

This study will:
‐ assess and consolidate the mission observational requirements to retrieve vegetation fluorescence with the required accuracy to use fluorescence information into dynamical vegetation photosynthesis models and the FLEX performance required to address the open issues in vegetation fluorescence.
‐ Establish the role of the different instruments in Sentinel3 and the FLEX payload in conjunction with external data sources, to derive the final fluorescence products
‐ Test the performances and evaluate feasibility of the evolving FLEX concept based on new iterations of the technical requirements and/or potential optimisation in the payload, as a consequence of output from the industrial system concept study , with the objective to provide the boundaries for optimization of the instrument concept.
The work carried out in this study will be of direct benefit for the Earth Explorer candidate mission and particularly in demonstrating the advantages of the selected implementation concept for measuring land vegetation fluorescence