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ESA and GAF AG continue to offer free-of-charge access to Third Party Mission data

20 Apr 2021

ESA and GAF AG provide free-of-charge access to Digital Surface Models (DSMs) and High Resolution (HR)/Medium Resolution (MR) data for scientific users. In January 2021, they extended their agreement under ESA's Third Party Missions (TPM) programme regarding the provision of IRS data and DSMs until the end of 2021 or until the budget allocated to this agreement is used, whichever occurs first.

Therefore, depending on the scientific relevance of proposals, ESA will continue to grant scientists free-of-charge access to IRS optical HR/MR satellite imagery and DSMs.

ESA and GAF are the exclusive suppliers in Europe of optical Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS) data from several missions. This unique service began in May 2017, funded by and carried out under the Third Party Missions programme of the European Space Agency.

The agreement encompasses European as well as worldwide products using archival data from the IRS-1C, IRS-1D, ResourceSat-1 and CartoSat-1 missions, as well as archive and new data from ResourceSat-2, continuously acquired since 1996.

Interested scientists can submit short project proposals, together with associated data requirements, to ESA. Depending on the scientific relevance of the proposal, ESA will grant the project a quota for IRS data products.

This allows access at no charge to high-resolution data from the PAN, LISS-IV Mono and LISS-III sensors as well as medium-resolution data from the WiFS and AWiFS sensors, from 1996 until today. Data can be obtained at various processing levels, including as Euro-Maps 3D DSMs with 5 m post spacing.

For more information, please visit ESA's TPM data description pages or read GAF AG's blog post.

As a result of an earlier agreement, OceanSat-2 Ocean Colour Monitor (OCM) data acquired at the Neustrelitz ground station is also available free-of-charge to all users worldwide through the ESA TPM Online Dissemination System. For more information about OCM data, visit the OceanSat-2 mission page.

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