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Mission Programmes

Explore the European Space Agency's Earth Observation satellite missions. Learn all about ESA's dedicated Earth Explorers or collaborations with other agencies through the Third Party Missions programme.

Earth Explorers

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Heritage Missions

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Third Party Missions

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Earth Watch

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Copernicus Sentinels

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Featured Missions

Explore the European Space Agency's Earth Observation satellite missions. Learn all about ESA's dedicated Earth Explorers or collaborations with other agencies through the Third Party Missions programme

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Aeolus

Current

Earth Explorers

The Aeolus mission provides global observations of wind profiles from space to improve the quality of weather forecasts, and to advance our ...

Swarm

Current

Earth Explorers

Swarm is dedicated to creating a highly detailed survey of the Earth’s geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution as well as the electric ...

CryoSat

Current

Earth Explorers

CryoSat determines variations in the thickness of continental ice sheets and marine ice cover. Europe's first ice mission is an advanced rad...

SMOS

Current

Earth Explorers

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is dedicated to making global observations of soil moisture over land and salinity over ...

Biomass

Upcoming

Earth Explorers

The objective of the Biomass mission is to determine the global distribution of forest biomass....

EarthCARE

Upcoming

Earth Explorers

EarthCARE will examine the role clouds and aerosols play in trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth's surface....

FLEX

Upcoming

Earth Explorers

The FLEX mission will provide global maps of vegetation fluorescence, which can be converted into an indicator of photosynthetic activity....

PROBA-V

Current

Earth Watch

The PROBA-V mission provides multispectral images to study the evolution of the vegetation cover on a daily and global basis....

PROBA-1

Current

Third Party Missions

PROBA-1 is a technology demonstration satellite that later became an operational Earth observation mission....

GOCE

Past

Earth Explorers

Heritage Missions

ESA's Gravity field and Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission mapped Earth's geoid very accurately, opening a window into Earth's interi...

Envisat

Past

Heritage Missions

Envisat was ESA's successor to ERS. Envisat carried ten instruments aboard for a wide range of Earth observing fields. The mission was opera...

ERS

Past

Heritage Missions

The ERS programme was composed of two missions, ERS-1 and ERS-2, which together observed the Earth for 20 years, from 1991 to 2011....

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