World-leading experts, New Space data providers, international space agencies and the scientific community will present the status of state-of-the-art satellite products and explore the latest developments in Calibration/Validation (Cal/Val) at ESA’s fifth VH-RODA workshop.

VH-RODA, or the Very High-resolution Radar & Optical Data Assessment workshop, will take place on 2 to 6 December at ESA’s centre for Earth observation (ESRIN) in Italy. Registration and abstract submission for the event are now open.

Over the past five years, VH-RODA has established itself as a key annual meeting for the data quality and Cal/Val community, enabling commercial providers to work with institutional experts on standards and best practices that ensure data of the highest possible quality are delivered to end users.

The workshop forms part of ESA’s ongoing efforts to support – and capitalise on – the growth of the commercial European Earth observation industry as it provides increasing volumes of very-high resolution data for scientific, commercial and institutional applications.

Building on the success of the past four editions of VH-RODA, ESA has expanded this year’s workshop to include new topics and exhibits.

VH-RODA 2024 will provide an open forum for participants to discuss current and future data quality and Cal/Val activities related to very high resolution optical, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and, for the first time, atmospheric data and products.

It will also be the first VH-RODA workshop to feature a vendors’ exhibit area with individual booths showcasing instrumentation, software or web-based demonstrations and resources.

The workshop will focus on Cal/Val activities of commercial data providers and institutional stakeholders, synergies between optical, SAR and atmospheric communities, and the presentation of standards and best practices for data quality.

Among the attendees will be commercial providers that form part of ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme, which disseminates commercial data to the scientific community for research and development purposes.

Representatives from the Copernicus Contributing Missions (CCM) programme, which provide commercial data to the Copernicus Services for operational applications, will also attend the event.

Topics covered at the workshop include requirements and methodologies of different calibration techniques; the selection of calibration sites for field campaigns; as well as the production of fiducial reference measurements, which serve as benchmarks for the evaluation of Earth observation data.

Other sessions will cover the production of pre-processed analysis ready data and digital elevation models; and quality control, best practices and product validation for these data.

The workshop will include sessions on future activities and innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence applications for processing and algorithms; Cal/Val and data quality for constellations and big data; and the calibration of upcoming missions.

Finally, discussions and panels on strategies towards a future ESA-led certification framework will have great relevance.