- All Categories (56)
- Data (6)
- News (15)
- Missions (8)
- Events (11)
- Tools (1)
- Activities (3)
- Campaigns (5)
- Documents (7)
News - General News
Go-to guide to Third Party Mission data offering
ESA’s latest Third Party Missions Data Access Guide has been published, providing technical details and information on available data collections for all current or past Third Party Missions.
News - Thematic area articles
Space data support Earth’s ecosystems
ESA’s Earth observation (EO) missions are making a critical contribution to monitoring transformations in our planet’s ecosystems, helping track changes in the vegetation, soil, and ocean that affect these systems.
News - Thematic area articles
Cloud-free collections key for land monitoring
Satellite imagery is a crucially important tool for monitoring the land, but cloud cover can often block parts of Earth’s surface from view, limiting subsequent analyses.
News - Success Stories
Commercial and international data for fire monitoring
As climate change sparks a surge in the frequency and intensity of wildfires, satellite data disseminated through ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme are helping scientists to track and investigate these potentially damaging natural events.
News - General News
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 Earth Explorers in this video.
News - Thematic area articles
Global understanding of Earth's land surfaces greatly boosted by satellite data
ESA perform land surface monitoring with a range of instruments onboard satellites acquiring optical and radar data. Collections of data from these missions are freely available for research purposes.
News - Success Stories
New worldwide dataset captures the planet in fine detail
Scientists have developed an open source planetwide dataset of high-resolution Earth observation imagery, thanks to commercial data delivered by ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme.
Event - Training
EO Summer School 5
ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.
Event - Training
EO Summer School 4
ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.
Event - Training
EO Summer School 3
ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.
News - Infographics
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 understanding of Earth’s climate.
Event - Conference
Living Planet Symposium 2022
Learn about the 2022 edition of ESA's Living Planet Symposium.
News - Thematic area articles
Space helps monitor Earth’s changing biosphere
Earth’s biosphere is continually changing. Through its pioneering Earth observation missions, ESA is making critical contributions to monitor these changes and their impacts on Earth’s water and carbon cycles.
News - Thematic area articles
Satellite data central to ocean monitoring
Over 95% of Earth’s water is found in our oceans, and yet sadly, oceans are under stress from climate change and pollution. Monitoring our oceans is vital for Earth’s survival and satellites are the primary means of long-term and independent observation of our vast ocean bodies and their associated coastal zones.
News - Thematic area articles
Satellite data boost global understanding of land surface
Understanding our changing land surface is essential in the study of climate change. Satellites are used to monitor changes to the material that covers Earth’s surface, so-called land cover, such as vegetation and water.
Event - Workshop
Space and the Arctic 2009 Workshop
Temperatures in the Arctic are rising at an unprecedented rate. This workshop looked at the needs and challenges of working and living in the rapidly changing Arctic and explore how space-based services might help to meet those needs.
News - Infographics
An overview of ESA's Third Party Missions programme
ESA’s Third Party Missions programme consists of almost 50 satellite missions, which are owned by organisations around the world. ESA has agreements with these organisations to acquire, process, and distribute data from their missions
News - Events and Proceedings
Φ-Week Triumphs
In its fourth edition, Φ-Week presented the scientific community with amazing opportunities and projects—thus running alongside innovation at 360 degrees.
Activity - General activities
EO Science for Society
ESA's Earth Observation Science for Society programme aims to promote scientific exploitation of satellite data, forges new scientific discoveries and pioneers new services, stimulating downstream industrial and economic growth.
Data - Project Proposal (Restrained)
SPOT-6 to 7 full archive and tasking
The SPOT 6 and 7 satellites ensure data continuity with the no longer operational SPOT 5 satellite and provide an archive of very high resolution optical acquisition as well as the possibility to task the satellites for new acquisitions. Following the completion of the SPOT 7 mission in March 2023, new acquisition tasking is only available for the SPOT 6 satellite. The ortho-products are automatically generated by the SPOT 6 and 7 ground segment, based on SRTM database or Reference3D when available. The projection available for SPOT 6 and 7 ortho-products is UTM, datum WGS84. Bands combinations: Pansharpened: colour image at 1.5 m resolution Bundle: 1.5 m panchromatic image and 6 m multispectral image. Geometric processing levels: Primary: The Primary product is the processing level closest to the natural image acquired by the sensor. This product restores perfect collection conditions: the sensor is placed in rectilinear geometry, and the image is clear of all radiometric distortion. Standard Ortho: The Ortho product is a georeferenced image in Earth geometry, corrected from acquisition and terrain off-nadir effects. Tailored ortho: Aside from the Standard Ortho product, when different specifications are needed, a custom orthorectification, with a more precise 3D model provided by the client or acquired for the purpose, can be provided on demand. As per ESA policy, very high-resolution imagery of conflict areas cannot be provided.