All countries participating in the Copernicus programme can generate additional national or commercial information or offer services on the basis of its freely available data and information. Germany also supports such initiatives. Coordination of such use of Copernicus is handled by the DLR Space Administration Division (see link to the German site "Koordination Nutzung von Copernicus").
In addition to providing access to Sentinel data on the collaborative hubs and on national data portals (e.g., CODE-DE), as well as by commercial activities and extended national services organised by public authorities, the so-called Copernicus collaborative ground segment also makes it possible for national stations to directly acquire Sentinel data. At present this is an option only for the Sentinel-1 SAR satellite data. Their data are directly received by the DFD ground station in Neustrelitz when the two satellites fly over Europe. Immediately after reception, image products are generated in near real time using ESA licensed processors. Based on algorithms developed at IMF and DFD, various information products for maritime security are afterwards generated and made available. Directly acquired data are also used for flood monitoring (see the link to "Team: Maritime Safety and Security Lab")