- All Categories
- Data
- News
- Missions
- Events
- Tools
- Activities
- Instruments
- Campaigns
- Documents
MISSIONS
Explore the European Space Agency's Earth Observation satellite missions. Learn all about ESA's dedicated Earth Explorers or collaborations with other agencies through the Third Party Missions programme.
Mission - Earth Explorers
CryoSat
CryoSat determines variations in the thickness of continental ice sheets and marine ice cover. Europe's first ice mission is an advanced radar altimeter specifically designed to monitor the most dynamic sections of Earth's cryosphere.
Mission - Earth Explorers
SMOS
The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is dedicated to making global observations of soil moisture over land and salinity over oceans.
Mission - Earth Explorers
Biomass
The objective of the Biomass mission is to determine the global distribution of forest biomass.
Mission - Earth Watch
PROBA-V
The PROBA-V mission provides multispectral images to study the evolution of the vegetation cover on a daily and global basis.
Mission - Third Party Missions
PROBA-1
PROBA-1 is a technology demonstration satellite that later became an operational Earth observation mission.
Mission - Heritage Missions
Envisat
Envisat was ESA's successor to ERS. Envisat carried ten instruments aboard for a wide range of Earth observing fields. The mission was operational from 2002 to 2012.
Mission - Heritage Missions
ERS
The ERS programme was composed of two missions, ERS-1 and ERS-2, which together observed the Earth for 20 years, from 1991 to 2011.
Mission - Third Party Missions
SAOCOM
The SAOCOM (SAtélite Argentino de Observación COn Microondas) satellite series represents Argentina's approved polarimetric L-band SAR constellation of two spacecraft. It's objective is to provide an effective Earth observation and disaster monitoring capability.
Mission - Copernicus Sentinels
Copernicus Sentinel-1
The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission comprises a constellation of two polar-orbiting satellites, operating day and night performing C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging, enabling them to acquire imagery regardless of the weather.
Mission - Third Party Missions
WorldView-4
WorldView-4 was an imaging and environment-monitoring satellite from Maxar of the United States, which offered very high resolution imagery.
Mission - Third Party Missions
WorldView-1
WorldView-1 helped meet the growing commercial demand for multi-spectral geospatial imagery.
Mission - Third Party Missions
WorldView Series
The WorldView constellation are environment-monitoring satellites that have been supplying imagery since 2007.
Mission - Third Party Missions
RADARSAT
The RADARSAT programme consists of a pair of remote sensing satellites from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Mission - Third Party Missions
NOAA POES
NOAA's AVHRR sensor is carried on the POES mission, a constellation of polar orbiting weather satellites.
Mission - Third Party Missions
IRS-P6 (ResourceSat-1)
IRS-P6 (also known as ResourceSat-1) launched on 17 October 2003 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre by the Indian PSLV-C5, and came to an end on 30 September 2013.
Mission - Third Party Missions
SPOT
The SPOT (from French "Satellite pour l'Observation de la Terre") series of missions has been supplying high-resolution, wide-area optical imagery since 1986.
Mission - Third Party Missions
SkySat
SkySat is a constellation of high-resolution Earth imaging satellites from the commercial company Planet Labs.
Mission - Third Party Missions
WorldView-3
WorldView-3 is the first multi-payload, super-spectral, high-resolution commercial satellite sensor operating at an altitude of 617 km. WorldView-3 is capable of collecting up to 680,000 square km per day.
Mission - Third Party Missions
WorldView-2
WorldView-2 is an environment-monitoring satellite from Maxar which presents images as the human eye can perceive them, creating a more realistic 'true colour' view of the world.
Mission - Third Party Missions
SPOT 7
SPOT 7 (also known as Azersky), like all the SPOT missions, is aimed at supplying high-resolution, wide-area optical imagery.