ESA's Heritage Space Programme preserves data from missions that are no longer operational, and keeps them accessible for long-term studies.

The programme covers more than 40 years of Earth observation data from more than 45 satellites, an extensive archive that supports a wide range of applications, particularly climate and environmental studies.

This infographic showcases just a few examples of how Heritage data continue to help, even decades after they finished operations:

Many of the success stories showcased used data from ESA's ERS (European Remote Sensing) and Envisat satellites in combination with current missions such as CryoSat, Copernicus Sentinels, and Third Party Missions including the Landsat series. Combining data from different missions in this way allows for observation of an area in the present and comparisons of how it looked over time, with examples dating back 30 years in these stories.

Open the links in the infographic to learn more about how Heritage missions support applications including climate, ocean and atmospheric monitoring, as well as ozone studies, sea ice decline, flood risk assessments, urban change, and water loss.