Earth Explorers
ESA's Earth Explorer missions are dedicated to addressing key scientific challenges identified by the EO community. Each mission employs the latest technological developments to observe different EO fields.
What are Earth Explorers?
The Earth Explorers programme consists of a series of satellites that share the common goal of advancing Earth science by helping answer principle scientific questions through observation of Earth’s key systems.
The Earth Explorers are each dedicated to observing a different aspect of Earth’s system, such as the Cryosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere and Ionosphere as well as the Earth’s interior. The overarching objective of these missions is to understand the Earth as a geosphere and the complex interactions between spheres and sub-spheres.
Current missions from the programme include Aeolus, CryoSat, SMOS and Swarm. The Earth Explorer family will continue to grow in the future through the addition of new missions such as EarthCARE, Biomass and FLEX.
What are the next Earth Explorers?
Learn about the planned missions in the Earth Explorers programme - EarthCARE, Biomass, FLEX, and FORUM - which will further our understandi...
Meet ESA's Swarm Mission Manager
Anja Strømme, ESA's Swarm Mission Manager, describes in detail the wonders of the Swarm mission....
Earth Explorers brochure
This brochure describes ESA's Earth Explorers Space Programme and includes infographics describing some of the missions in the programme....
Pioneering science missions: Summarising ESA’s Earth Explorers
Designed for research purposes, ESA's Earth Explorer missions are dedicated to monitoring parts of Earth’s system. Learn more about the Eart...
Featured Missions
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...
Biomass
The objective of the Biomass mission is to determine the global distribution of forest biomass....
CryoSat
CryoSat determines variations in the thickness of continental ice sheets and marine ice cover. Europe's first ice mission is an advanced rad...
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....
GOCE
ESA's Gravity field and Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission mapped Earth's geoid very accurately, opening a window into Earth's interi...
SMOS
The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is dedicated to making global observations of soil moisture over land and salinity over ...
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...
Discover Latest Data
Latest Data Release News
New CryoTEMPO-EOLIS baseline 2 point and gridded products
New CryoTEMPO EOLIS baseline 2 point and gridded products are now available monthly as of January 2023....
Brand new Cryo-TEMPO Baseline-B boosts CryoSat research
New datasets have been released for the Cryo-TEMPO thematic products....
New CryoSat Ice Baseline-E 2012 and 2013 Reprocessed Data – Available now!
We are pleased to inform the CryoSat scientific community that the reprocessed CryoSat Ice Baseline-E data for all of 2012 and 2013 has been...
Additional Swarm Langmuir probe Ion Drift, density and effective Mass dataset 0103 available for Swarm
Additional Swarm Langmuir probe Ion Drift, density and effective Mass (SLIDEM) dataset at 2 Hz cadence is now available on the Swarm dissemi...
Browse Missions by Thematic Area
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