Instrument needs for the Copernicus space infrastructure in the timeframe 2020–2030

This work is part of “Operational Network of Individual Observation Nodes” (ONION). ONION is an H2020 project devoted to identify solutions and to satisfy emerging needs of the European Earth Observation (EO) market. In this regard, this work presents a review and analysis of the potential payloads and next generation of sensors in order to cover the measurements gaps of the top ten use cases of the European EO infrastructure. For each use case the potential instruments to support stakeholder requirements are identified, pointing out the aspects in which they represent an innovation with respect to existing technological solutions. This identification of instruments is based on existing, operational, under development, and demonstration missions. The capability of the instrument technologies is evaluated according to the trends in the design for small EO satellites (payload mass <; 500 kg). This work concludes with a set the potential instruments to be possibly developed as part of the future European space infrastructure, proposing an integrated set of instruments and measurements to optimize the performances, simplifying the implementation, and reducing the costs.Peer Reviewe