- All Categories
- Data
- News
- Missions
- Events
- Tools
- Activities
- Instruments
- Campaigns
- Documents
News - General News
Overachieving SMOS mission primed for continued success
ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) was the second Earth Explorer launched in 2009. Over 13 years on, having already vastly exceeded its predicted lifetime and initial objectives, the mission has been further extended until at least the end of 2025.
Data - Data Description
Landsat RBV
This dataset contains Landsat 3 Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) products, acquired by ESA by the Fucino ground station over its visibility mask. The data (673 scenes) are the result of the digitalization of the original 70 millimetre (mm) black and white film rolls. The RBV instrument was mounted on board the Landsat 1 to 3 satellites between 1972 and 1983, with 80 metre resolution. Three independent co-aligned television cameras, one for each spectral band (band 1: blue-green, band 2: yellow-red, band 3: NIR), constituted this instrument. The RBV system was redesigned for Landsat 3 to use two cameras operating in one broad spectral band (green to near-infrared; 0.505–0.750 µm), mounted side-by-side, with panchromatic spectral response and higher spatial resolution than on Landsat 1 and Landsat 2. Each of the cameras produced a swath of about 90 km (for a total swath of 180 km), with a spatial resolution of 40 m.
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 - Infographics
Measuring photosynthetic fluorescence - ESA's FLEX mission
Learn about ESA's upcoming FLEX mission, which is dedicated to gathering information about photosynthetic activity to shed light on the functioning of Earth's vegetation, in our latest infographic.
Data - Data Description
Landsat 7 ETM + European and Mediterranean Countries Cloud Free Collection
This dataset contains the cloud-free products from Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper collection acquired over Europe, North Africa and middle East; for each scene only one product is selected, with the minimal cloud coverage. The Landsat 7 ETM+ scenes typically cover 185 x 170 km. A standard full scene is nominally centred on the intersection between a Path and Row (the actual image centre can vary by up to 100m). The data are system corrected.
Data - Data Description
Landsat 5 TM European and Mediterranean Countries Cloud Free Collection
This dataset contains the cloud-free products from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper collection acquired over Europe, North Africa and middle East; for each scene only one product is selected, with the minimal cloud coverage. The acquired Landsat TM scene covers approximately 183 x 172.8 km. A standard full scene is nominally centred on the intersection between a path and row (the actual image centre can vary by up to 100 m). The data are system corrected.
News - Infographics
The COSMO-SkyMed series - Two generations of SAR satellites
Learn about the COSMO-SkyMed (Constellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) series in our latest infographic.
News - Success Stories
Remote sensing scientists raise alarm for African savannah
Researchers have used high resolution WorldView-3 imagery to map vegetation cover in the Greater Maasai Mara savannah, a global hotspot for biodiversity in Kenya.
Data - Data Description
PAZ ESA archive
The PAZ ESA archive collection consists of PAZ Level 1 data previously requested by ESA supported projects over their areas of interest around the world and, as a consequence, the products are scattered and dispersed worldwide and in different time windows. The dataset regularly grows as ESA collects new products over the years. Available modes are: StripMap mode (SM): SSD less than 3 m for a scene 30 km x 50 km in single polarization or 15 km x 50 km in dual polarisation ScanSAR mode (SC): the scene is 100 x 150 km2, SSD less than 18 m in signle pol only Wide ScanSAR mode (WS): single polarisation only, with SS less than 40 m and scene size of 270 x 200 km2 Spotlight modes (SL): SSD less than 2 m for a scene 10 km x 10 km, both single and dual polarization are available High Resolution Spotlight mode (HS): in both single and dual polarisation, the scene is 10x5 km2, SSD less than 1 m Staring Spotlight mode (ST): SSD is 25 cm, the scene size is 4 x 4 km2, in single polarisation only. The available geometric projections are: Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC): single look product, no geocoding, no radiometric artifact included, the pixel spacing is equidistant in azimuth and in ground range Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD): detected multi look product, simple polynomial slant-to-ground projection is performed in range, no image rotation to a map coordinate system is performed Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC): multi look detected product, projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid with no terrain corrections Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC): multi look detected product, projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid, the image distortions caused by varying terrain height are corrected using a DEM. The following table summarises the offered product types. EO-SIP product type Operation Mode Geometric Projection Geometric Projection PSP_SM_SSC Stripmap (SM) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_SM_MGD Stripmap (SM) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SM_GEC Stripmap (SM) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SM_EEC Stripmap (SM) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_SC_MGD ScanSAR (SC) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SC_GEC ScanSAR (SC) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SC_EEC ScanSAR (SC) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SC_SSC ScanSAR (SC) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_SL_SSC Spotlight (SL) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_SL_MGD Spotlight (SL) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SL_GEC Spotlight (SL) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SL_EEC Spotlight (SL) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_HS_SSC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_HS_MGD High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_HS_GEC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_HS_EEC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_ST_SSC Staring Spotlight (ST) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_ST_MGD Staring Spotlight (ST) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_ST_GEC Staring Spotlight (ST) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_ST_EEC Staring Spotlight (ST) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_WS_SSC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_WS_MGD Wide ScanSAR (WS) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_WS_GEC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_WS_EEC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC)
Campaign
SARSimHT
The main objective of “SARSimHT – Airborne SAR experiment to simulate Hydroterra data” was to demonstrate the image formation process of Hydroterra through the exploitation of a repeat-pass hyper-temporal airborne SAR image stack acquired over short time intervals representative of the Hydroterra mission.
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.
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.
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.
Event - Meeting
PROBA-V QWG meeting 15
The Proba-V QWG meeting 15 - Hybrid Event: University of Valencia and Microsoft Teams held on 09-10 June 2022
News - Infographics
PROBA-1 - From technology demonstration to long-term Earth observation
Learn about ESA's PROBA-1 (Project for On-Board Autonomy) mission in our new infographic.
News - Events and Proceedings
Data preservation takes centre stage at Living Planet Symposium
Against the backdrop of the famed Rhine River, world-class scientists and Earth observation data-users are gathered this week in the historical city of Bonn, at the Living Planet Symposium (LPS).
News - Data Release news
PlanetScope and Skysat data available through ESA’s Third Party Missions Programme
Through ESA’s Third Party Missions Programme, researchers, scientists and companies from around the world can apply to access Planet’s high-frequency, high-resolution satellite data for non-commercial use.
News - Success Stories
Predicting crop yield using Planet data
The world’s population continues to grow, while the climate crisis is raising Earth’s temperatures and increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events – all of which affect food security.
News - Infographics
PlanetScope and SkySat - The high-resolution nanosatellite constellation
Find out more about the PlanetScope and SkySat missions in our new infographic.
News - Success Stories
How Envisat helped to shape global understanding of Earth’s systems
Twenty years have passed since a ground-breaking European spacecraft designed to deliver unprecedented insight into the planet’s changing environment was lofted into orbit.