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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

The Aeolus mission which was launched into space on 22 August 2018 and was retired on 30 April 2023, provided global observations of wind pr...

Swarm

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

CryoSat

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

SMOS

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

Biomass

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

EarthCARE

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

FLEX

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

PROBA-V

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

PROBA-1

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

GOCE

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

Envisat

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

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....

EXPLORE OUR MISSIONS IN 3D

Interact with 3D models of ESA satellites, which visualise their design and payload, and see case studies highlighting data applications.

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