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  • Data (6)
  • News (7)
  • Missions (1)
  • Events (11)
  • Tools (3)
  • News - Infographics

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    Showcasing success stories from ESA's Heritage Missions

    Find out how ESA's Heritage Space Programme data continue to help, even decades after they finished operations, in our latest infographic.

  • Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

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    Sea Ice Thematic Data Product [ALT_TDP_SI]

    This is the Sea Ice Thematic Data Product (TDP) V1 resulting from the ESA FDR4ALT project and containing the sea ice related geophysical parameters, along with associated uncertainties: snow depth, radar and sea-ice freeboard, sea ice thickness and concentration. The collection covers data for the ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat missions, and bases on Level 1 data coming from previous reprocessing (ERS REAPER and the Envisat V3.0) but taking into account the improvements made at Level 0/Level 1 in the frame of FDR4ALT (ALT FDR). The Sea Ice TDP provides data from the northern or southern hemisphere in two files corresponding to the Arctic and Antarctic regions respectively for the winter periods only, i.e., October to June for the Arctic, and May to November for the Antarctic. For many aspects, the Sea Ice TDP is very innovative: First time series of sea-ice thickness estimates for ERS Homogeneous calibration, allowing the first Arctic radar freeboard time series from ERS-1 (1991) to CryoSat-2 (2021) Uncertainties estimated along-track with a bottom-up approach based on dominant sources ERS pulse blurring error corrected using literature procedure [Peacock, 2004] The FDR4ALT products are available in NetCDF format. Free standard tools for reading NetCDF data can be used. Information for expert altimetry users is also available in a dedicated NetCDF group within the products. Please consult the FDR4ALT Product User Guide before using the data. The FDR4ALT datasets represent the new reference data for the ERS/Envisat altimetry missions, superseding any previous mission data. Users are strongly encouraged to make use of these datasets for optimal results.

  • News - Success Stories

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    Trailblazing ERS-2 mission enables climate change applications

    As ESA’s ERS-2 satellite approaches Earth’s atmosphere for reentry, it’s time to reflect on the mission’s great achievements in powering climate-related applications.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Monitoring water on Earth's surface

    ESA's Earth observation satellites are playing a leading role in furthering our understanding of how Earth's terrestrial hydrosphere is being influenced by humankind.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Satellites investigate Earth’s terrestrial hydrosphere

    ESA’s Earth observation satellites are playing a leading role in furthering our understanding of how Earth’s water cycle is being influenced by humankind.

  • Event - Training

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    EO Summer School 7

    ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.

  • Event - Training

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    EO Summer School 6

    ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.

  • Event - Training

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    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

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    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 - Thematic area articles

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    Transforming space data into climate action

    ESA’s Earth observation activities are playing a key role in the revitalised global drive to combat climate change.

  • News - Spotlight on EO community

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    Introducing Mirko Albani

    In this short introduction, ESA's Heritage Missions Programme Manager describes what he likes most about ESA's long term archive of satellite mission data and his role in the programme.

  • Event - Workshop

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    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.

  • Event - Training

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    2nd Advanced Training Course on Ocean Remote Sensing 2009

    This advanced training course focused on ocean remote sensing theory and applications.

  • Tools - Apps

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    Heritage Missions app for iOS

    Download the Heritage Missions application to discover what the missions were about, how it worked and what the elements of the space and ground segment that make these missions unique.

  • Tools - Apps

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    Heritage Missions app for Android

    Download the Heritage Missions application to discover what the missions were about, how it worked and what the elements of the space and ground segment that make these missions unique.

  • Tools - Other

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    Polar TEP

    The Polar Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP) enables access, processing, uploading, visualisation, manipulation and comparison of data over the polar regions.

  • Event - Workshop

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    SEASAR 2012

    The European Space Agency and the Norwegian Space Centre jointly organised the fourth SAR oceanography workshop, 'SEASAR 2012', entitled 'Advances in SAR Oceanography'.

  • Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

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    ERS-1/2 SAR IM Precision L1 [SAR_IMP_1P]

    The SAR Precision product is a multi-look (speckle-reduced), ground range image acquired in Image Mode. This product type is most applicable to users interested in remote sensing applications, but is also suitable for calibration purposes. The products are calibrated and corrected for the SAR antenna pattern and range-spreading loss. Radar backscatter can be derived from the products for geophysical modelling, but no correction is applied for terrain-induced radiometric effects. The images are not geocoded, and terrain distortion (foreshortening and layover) has not been removed. The numbering sequence relates to the satellite position and therefore differs between Ascending and Descending scenes. Product characteristics: Pixel size: 12.5 m (range - across track) x 12.5 m (azimuth - along track) Scene area: 100 km (range) x at least 102.5 km (azimuth) Scene size: 8000 pixels range x at least 8200 lines (azimuth) Pixel depth: 16 bits unsigned integer Total product volume: 125 MB Projection: Ground-range Number of looks: 3.

  • Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

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    ERS-1/2 SAR IM Single Look Complex L1 [SAR_IMS_1P]

    The SAR SLC product is a single look complex acquired in Image Mode. It is a digital image, with slant range and phase preserved, generated from raw SAR data using up-to-date auxiliary parameters. The products are intended for use in SAR quality assessment, calibration and interferometric applications. A minimum number of corrections and interpolations are performed on the data. Absolute calibration parameters (when available) are provided in the product annotation. Product characteristics: Pixel size: 8 m (range - across track) x 4 m (azimuth - along track – varying slightly depending on acquisition Pulse Repetition Frequency) Scene area: 100 km (range) x at least 102.5 km (azimuth) Scene size: 5000 samples (range) x at least 30000 lines (azimuth) Pixel depth: 32 bits signed integer (16 bits I, 16 bits Q) Total product volume: 575 MB Projection: Slant range- Number of looks: 1.

  • Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

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    ERS-1/2 SCATTEROMETER Ocean Wind field and Sea Ice probability [ASPS20.H/ASPS20.N]

    The ASPS Level 2 products contain, for each node: the radar backscattering sigma nought for the three beams of the instrument, the four aliased wind solutions (Rank 1-4 wind vector) and the de-aliased wind vector flag, the sea-ice probability and sea-ice flag, the YAW quality flag. The wind retrieval is performed with the CMOD5N geophysical model function derived by ECMWF to compute the neutral winds rather than 10 m winds. ASPS L2.0 High resolution products are provided with a spatial resolution of 25x25 km and a grid spacing of 12.5 km. ASPS L2.0 Nominal resolution products are provided with a spatial resolution of 50x50 km and a grid spacing of 25 km. One product covers one orbit from ascending node crossing. Please consult the Product Quality Readme file before using the ERS ASPS data.