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In order to schedule in-situ measurements at the time of Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 overpass for my AOI, I would like to access their future acquisitions plans for the summer 2020 (July/September).

I have read in this post that the list of all future acquisitions is difficult to predict. I would like to better understand why: if possible I would like to build a preliminary schedule just to have an idea, even if it's not 100% reliable.

So far I have the following sources of acquisition plans:

The Landsat Acquisition page explains that the acquisition plan is based upon seasonality, land definition, historical cloud cover, gain settings, and sun angle.

How come the Landsat-8 tool has such a long time coverage and the Sentinel-2 tool doesn't? Should I not trust the Landsat-8 tool? Are the acquisition plans of both satellites not subject to the same uncertainties?

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  • As indicated in user6072577 's answer, Sentinel-2 repeat orbits are covered every 5 days when counting both satellites. Landsat-8 repeat orbits are covered every 16 days. I was able draw my acquisition plan based on these two periods and on the past acquisition dates over my AOI. However, as also mentioned in user6072577 's answer, with this method I had no 100% guarantee that a product would be available for each date in my acquisition plan, notably because of routine and non-routine maintenance activities, such as sensor decontamination.
    – tvoirand
    Commented Oct 28, 2020 at 15:54

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Sentinel-2 repeat orbits are covered every 10 days, or 5 days if you are counting both satellites. However it is not possible to guarantee that a product will be available for a certain date far in the future due to routine and non-routine maintenance activities, for example sensor decontamination.

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  • I understand how the Sentinel-2 acquisition plan is only of a couple of weeks due to maintenance activities. Does this mean that the Landsat Acquisition tool and the Landsat Acquisition page quoted in my question do not take these maintenance activities into account, even though they also apply to Landsat-8 acquisitions?
    – tvoirand
    Commented Oct 28, 2020 at 15:56
  • I've no idea about Landsat, sorry!
    – user6072577
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 10:13
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    Thank you for your helpful answer regarding Sentinel-2 acquisitions. However, I can't accept it for now since my question applies to Landsat-8 also.
    – tvoirand
    Commented Oct 30, 2020 at 10:37

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