Sentinel-1 RTC and GRD missing data

[natborn2]

There are some missing items in Sentinel-1 RTC and GRD collections. I searched a particular bounding box for items since the start of the year and found 2 items in RTC, 3 items in GRD, compared with 4 items in Copernicus.

The 1 item missing from both GRD and RTC is dated 20260211 so this may be a processing delay in MPC (?).
But the 1 item missing from RTC that is present in GRD is dated 20260118.

Up to December 2025 this AOI was receiving regular updates at 12-day revisit in the RTC collection.

import planetary_computer
import pystac_client

catalog = pystac_client.Client.open(
    "https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/api/stac/v1",
    modifier=planetary_computer.sign_inplace,
)

# RTC search
search = catalog.search(
    collections=["sentinel-1-rtc"], 
    datetime="2026-01-01/2026-02-16",
    bbox=[116.89457,2.35293,116.97763,2.41432],
    query={"sat:relative_orbit": {"eq": 105}}
)
items = search.item_collection()
print(f"Found {len(items)} items")
for item in items:
    print(item.id)

Found 2 items
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260130T215833_20260130T215858_063002_07E7C0_rtc
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260106T215835_20260106T215900_062652_07DAC0_rtc

GRD search

search = catalog.search(
    collections=["sentinel-1-grd"], 
    datetime="2026-01-01/2026-02-16",
    bbox=[116.89457,2.35293,116.97763,2.41432],
    query={"sat:relative_orbit": {"eq": 105}}
)
items = search.item_collection()
print(f"Found {len(items)} items")
for item in items:
    print(item.id)

Found 3 items
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260130T215833_20260130T215858_063002_07E7C0
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260118T215834_20260118T215859_062827_07E17A
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260106T215835_20260106T215900_062652_07DAC0

Copernicus search

https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/?zoom=13&lat=2.39&lng=116.94&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=U2FsdGVkX1%2BoBE4B0yYhHUlI6jUWB3PHy1v5jqwGQacP%2BXUXEbpaHAeMfDSvxJMFEFxQ35O9fxxJYBGTowxuSOCV9wPVz6ES2xtZROn%2FqDmlL4LHWWLAqTQHM1H6nhSg&datasetId=S2_L2A_CDAS&fromTime=2026-02-13T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2026-02-13T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=1_TRUE_COLOR

Copernicus lists 4 items in relative orbit 105 for the same location and dates:
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260211T215833_20260211T215858_063177_07EE44_418C
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260130T215833_20260130T215858_063002_07E7C0_4CAF
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260118T215834_20260118T215859_062827_07E17A_9B44
S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260106T215835_20260106T215900_062652_07DAC0_1368

[natborn2]

Update:
The 20260211 scene is now available from MPC, but this was definitely not there last week, so that's a significant delay. I can't find any metadata to indicate the RTC processing timestamp. The Processing Datetime is 2026-02-12T01:53:46.000000Z but this does not reflect the time it was available.

The 20260118 scene is still missing from RTC but present in GRD.

The latest scene shown by Copernicus from 20260223 (S1A_IW_GRDH_1SDV_20260223T215832_20260223T215857_063352_07F4E9_CFE8) has not yet appeared on MPC.

In general I have found the RTC product from MPC to be very reliable so I am a little mystified by these delays and missing data.