Envisat is the most ambitious Earth Observation mission developed and operated by ESA. Both the satellite size and the number of on-board sensors are unique.
Together with its predecessors, ERS-1 and ERS-2, the Envisat mission deeply contributed to expanding our knowledge in the Earth sciences and to develop operational applications related to environmental monitoring.
Envisat was launched by Ariane-5 on 28 February 2002 and failed on 08 April 2012 after 10 years of activity, doubling the nominal lifetime of 5 years.
The satellite carried nine sensors which allowed the mission to continue and improve upon the geophysical measurements which began with ERS-1 and ERS-2.
Envisat was operated in a 35-day repeat cycle, like ERS-2. In 2010, the orbit was modified into a 30-day cycle to further extend the mission lifetime with the objective of providing a bridge to the Copernicus Sentinel missions (Sentinel-1, Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-5P). Unfortunately, a major failure occurred in April 2012, ending the Envisat mission a few weeks after celebrating its 10th anniversary of operations.
Envisat Gantt Tool
The Gantt Tool is a Windows PC application providing highly interactive visualization of several types of files and database time-based information.
The Gantt Tool presents two types of visualization:
• Gantt chart, providing a straightforward representation of events on a time-line display, organised by event types and with colours according to the event type and several event conditions;
• Map display, overlaying the events on an interactive world map in compatibility with the Envisat orbit and its ground track, and showing the actual Envisat instrument swaths.
The Gantt Tool was specifically developed for supporting the Envisat Payload Data Segment (PDS) development and integration.
After the Envisat launch the Gantt Tool has been strongly enhanced to support PDS operations, in particular for PDS production and performance monitoring, analysis and trouble-shooting and production recovery operations.
All the Gantt Tool features are specifically applicable to the Envisat PDS although it constitutes a solid base for extension to other missions.