News - Thematic area articles

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 - 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 - Success Stories

10 years of Envisat data help to illuminate ocean processes

A decade after Envisat beamed its final image to the planet, the pioneering ESA mission is continuing to foster improved understanding of Earth’s systems.

News - General News

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.

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.

Activity - Projects

Dragon 2 Cooperation Programme

The Dragon 2 Programme focussed on the exploitation of ESA, ESA's Third Party Missions and Chinese Earth observation data for science and applications development in land, ocean and atmospheric applications.

News - Data Release news

New reprocessing of datasets celebrates 30 years of ERS

The ERS programme celebrated its 30th anniversary on 17 July. Today, we are still exploiting ERS data and experts continue to work on improving the altimeter, radiometer and SAR data the programme acquired.

News - Infographics

ERS - ESA’s first Earth observation satellites

To mark the 30th anniversary of ERS, we've released a new infographic summarising the mission.

Tools - Apps

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

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.

Document - Technical Note

ESRIN-ERS-Central-Facility-GAP-Files-Interface-Specification.pdf

This document specifies the interface through which files of data related to the Global Activity Plan (GAP), stored in the ESRIN ERS Central Facility (EECF), are transmitted to the external entities. The EECF systems involved in this data exchange are the Interface Subset (ISS), responsible for telecommunication aspects and preprocessing, and the Central User Service (CUS), where the GAP resides.

Document - Technical Note

ERS-National-and-Foreign-Stations-Operators-Working-Group.pdf

This document presents material from the ERS National and Foreign Ground Station Operators Working Group Meeting, which took place in Toulouse, France, from 14 to 15 December 1995.

Document - Proceedings

3rd-ERS-Symposium-Space-at-the-Service-of-our-Environment.pdf

Proceedings of the 3rd ERS Symposium 'Space at the Service of our Environment', held on 14-21 March 1997 in Florence, Italy. 3 Volumes.

Document - Proceedings

2nd-Conference-on-Academic-and-Industrial-Cooperation-in-Space-Research.pdf

This document describes the proceedings of the second conference on academic and industrial cooperation in space research, held in Graz, Austria, 15-17 November 2000.

Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers

ATSR

The Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) on board ERS-1 and ERS-2 mission consisted of two instruments, an Infra-Red Radiometer and a Microwave Sounder.

Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers

MWR (ERS)

The microwave radiometer (MWR) instrument on board the ERS-1 and ERS-2 missions provided measurements of the integrated atmospheric water vapour column and cloud liquid water content.

Document - General Reference

ERS-2 - 10 Years in Orbit

Document - User Guide

A short guide to the ERS-2 ATSR-1 and -2 instruments and their data products

Data - Data Description

Envisat RA-2 Sensor and Geophysical Data Record - SGDR [RA2_MWS__2P]

This is a RA-2 Sensor and Geophysical Data Record (SGDR) Full Mission Reprocessing (FMR) V3 product. This FMR follows the first Envisat Altimetry reprocessing Version (V2.1) completed in 2012. The GDR and S-GDR data products were reprocessed for all cycles from 6 to 113 (May 2002 to April 2012) into a homogeneous standard in NetCDF format (close to Sentinel-3). The Sensor Data Record (SGDR) Product from RA-2/MWR includes the data in the GDR product (RA-2 geophysical data, MWR data) and also RA-2 averaged waveforms (18Hz) and RA-2 individual waveforms (1800Hz). This product is a continuation of ERS RA data. This data product has a coverage of 1 pass and pole to pole, a spatial sampling of about 390 m along track and a size of 31 to 40 MB, depending on presence of individual waveforms. The radiometric accuracy is 0.2 dB and auxiliary data include: Orbit state vectors (DORIS, FOS), RA2 and MWR characterisation data, Platform attitude, Gain calibration, USO frequency, ECMWF data, time relation, leap second, Ionospheric corrections, geoid, mean sea surface, slope data, and tide model (ocean, earth, loading, pole). Please consult the Envisat RA-2/MWR Product Quality Readme file before using the data.

Data - Data Description

Envisat RA-2 Geophysical Data Record - GDR [RA2_GDR__2P]

This is a RA-2 Geophysical Data Record (GDR) Full Mission Reprocessing (FMR) V3 product containing radar range and orbital altitude, wind speed, wave height, water vapour from the MWR and geophysical corrections. This FMR follows the first Envisat Altimetry reprocessing Version (V2.1) completed in 2012. The GDR and S-GDR data products were reprocessed for all cycles from 6 to 113 (May 2002 to April 2012) into a homogeneous standard in NetCDF format (close to Sentinel-3). For many aspects, the V3.0 reprocessed data are better than the previous dataset: In terms of available and valid data, the coverage is better, notably thanks to a better availability of MWR data at the beginning of the mission In terms of performance at cross-overs, the quality is improved: the annual signal and average of Mean SSH is decreased, as well as the standard deviation The new MWR characteristics were shown to improve largely the global quality of data. As well as the new tide model, the new MSS and the new orbit standard The Global and regional Mean Sea Level trend is very weakly impacted though the effort was put, this time, on the mesoscale restitution, rather than long term drift, as during V2.1 reprocessing Please consult the Envisat RA-2/MWR Product Quality Readme file PDF before using the data.