Frequently asked questions
What the planner can tell you, what it cannot promise, and how it handles forecasts, areas, and exports.
What does the Sentinel-2 Acquisition Planner do?
It finds ESA-published Sentinel-2 planned footprints that intersect your point or area, then adds AOI coverage, orbit context, and MET Norway forecast cloud context. It is decision support, not a promise that an image will be acquired or usable.
Does a result mean Sentinel-2 will image my area?
A Planned result appears in the active ESA acquisition plan, but plans and execution can change, and the displayed footprint is simplified. A Predicted result is a modeled CelesTrak/SGP4 orbital crossing used when an authoritative plan is unavailable; it is not a scheduled acquisition. Neither status confirms that a product will be delivered.
Is the cloud label a probability of a clear image?
No. The planner uses MET Norway’s modeled total cloud fraction near the opportunity time—one weather cell for a point and up to nine for an area—and displays the median plus a simple clear-fraction proxy of 1 minus cloud fraction. It is not a calibrated probability or a guarantee of usable imagery. Missing weather remains unscored; stale weather is labeled and served for at most six hours.
What areas can I search?
Enter coordinates, choose a point on the map, use your browser location, draw a polygon, or upload GeoJSON or KML. Supported GeoJSON geometry is Point, Polygon, MultiPolygon, or a polygon FeatureCollection; KML must contain polygons. Coordinates must use EPSG:4326. Uploads are limited to 512 KB, and AOIs to 5,000 vertices, 20 rings, and 250,000 km².
Which spacecraft, time windows, and filters are available?
You can select S2A, S2B, and S2C and search the next 3, 7, 10, or 14 days. Advanced settings filter by minimum AOI coverage and maximum modeled cloud fraction. Opportunities without weather remain in the results instead of being treated as clear or silently discarded.
How are “Best conditions” results ordered?
Results with weather are ordered by the clear-fraction proxy, then AOI coverage, then acquisition time; unscored results remain available after scored results. Choose Soonest for chronological order. Best means best by those displayed inputs, not guaranteed image quality.
What happens to my area and location data?
The search sends your AOI to the planner service, where it is processed in memory and is not persisted or included in analytics. Cookieless analytics contain only aggregate result buckets and degraded-state labels. CARTO and OpenStreetMap receive normal viewport tile coordinates, which can approximate the area being viewed, but not your submitted AOI file or planner results.
Can I share or export a search?
Shareable searches encode their settings in the URL fragment; the fragment is not part of the page request, but anyone you share the link with can read it. Oversized searches remain in tab-local storage for four hours and cannot be shared. Results export as CSV, iCalendar, or GeoJSON. GeoJSON includes opportunity geometry when it can be loaded and reports when geometry is unavailable.
Why might I see no results or source warnings?
Nothing may intersect the selected area and time window, filters may be too strict, or the active ESA plan may not cover the full requested horizon. Try a longer horizon, lower the minimum coverage, or allow more forecast cloud, and check Source status for partial, stale, or degraded data. A weather failure does not remove acquisition results.