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The Hub Talks: Absolut Sensing’s GEN1: One Year of In-Orbit Operations and Data Processing for Facility-Scale Methane Monitoring

Name: The Hub Talks: Absolut Sensing’s GEN1: One Year of In-Orbit Operations and Data Processing for Facility-Scale Methane Monitoring
Start: 2026-05-28T15:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-05-28T16:00:00+02:00

Speakers: Amélie Falcou, Frédéric Roman

Abstract: This talk presents a one-year return on experience from the in-orbit operations of the GESat GEN1 mission, a compact satellite designed to detect and quantify methane emissions at facility scale.

We will first introduce the mission concept, based on a SWIR Fizeau interferometer combined with a push-frame acquisition strategy, enabling high-resolution measurements from a small satellite platform. We will then describe the ground processing chain, from raw interferometric measurements to methane concentration and emission products, including calibration, interferogram reconstruction, and physics-based retrieval.

Particular emphasis will be placed on the articulation between instrument physics, radiative transfer modeling, and inverse methods, which together enable robust methane detection and quantification.

A key focus of the presentation will be the validation of the measurements and derived products. We will present in-orbit performance results, including statistical assessment of retrieval precision, consistency analysis across repeated acquisitions, and comparisons with reference datasets such as TCCON and TROPOMI. We will also highlight validation campaigns based on controlled methane releases, demonstrating accurate quantification of emission rates under real conditions, including blind test scenarios.

Finally, we will share lessons learned from operating such a system in real conditions, highlighting key challenges across the acquisition and processing chain, as well as perspectives for improving performance and scaling towards future constellation deployments.