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.

Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

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 the 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 - Data Release news

Full European Landsat data collection now available under the same catalogue

The Full European Landsat data collection, from Landsat-1 to Landsat-8, is now available under the same catalogue

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.

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.

Data - Data Description

Landsat TM ESA archive

This dataset contains all the Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper high-quality ortho-rectified L1T dataset acquired by ESA over the Fucino, Matera, Kiruna and Maspalomas visibility masks, as well as campaign data over Malindi, Bishkek, Chetumal, and Libreville. 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). A full image is composed of 6920 pixels x 5760 lines and each band requires 40 MB of storage space (uncompressed) at 30 m spatial resolution in the VIS, NIR and SWIR as well as 120 m in the TIR spectral range. Kiruna Landsat TM GTC density map Maspalomas Landsat TM GTC density map Matera Landsat TM GTC density map

News - Success Stories

ERS Heritage Data allow for 30 years of science

At their time of launch thirty years ago, the two ERS satellites were the most sophisticated Earth observation spacecraft ever developed and launched by Europe.

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.

News - Data Release news

New reprocessed Landsat data on a new dissemination server

The full ESA Landsat archive has been reprocessed with the latest version of the processor to provide a homogenous dataset covering MSS, TM and ETM+ data.

Data - Data Description

Landsat MSS ESA Archive

This dataset contains all the Landsat 1 to Landsat 5 Multi Spectral Scanner (MSS) high-quality ortho-rectified Level 1 GEO and GTC dataset acquired by ESA over the Fucino, Kiruna (active from April to September only) and Maspalomas (on campaign basis) visibility masks. The acquired Landsat MSS 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 200 m). The altitude changed from 917 km to 705 km and therefore two World Reference Systems (WRS) were used. A full image is composed of 3460 pixels x 2880 lines with a pixel size of 60 m. Two different product levels are available: Geometrically and terrain corrected GTC Products (L1T): The most accurate level of processing as they incorporate Ground Control Points (GCPs) and a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to provide systematic geometric and topographic accuracy; with geodetic accuracy dependent on the number, spatial distribution and accuracy of the GCPs over the scene extent, and the resolution of the DEM used. Geometrically corrected GEO Product (L1G): Normally generated where there is a lack of GCPs, and are derived purely from data collected by the sensor and spacecraft e.g. ephemeris data. Matera density and coverage map Kiruna density and coverage map Maspalomas density and coverage map

Document - Technical Note

Landsat 7 ETM Image Assessment System Radiometric Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document

Document - Technical Note

Landsat 7 ETM Image Assessment System Geometric Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document

News - Success Stories

New life for Landsat historical data

45 years of data, more than 1.8 million images, these are the numbers of an adventure started 48 years ago with the launch of the first Landsat satellite.

Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

ERS-2 SCATTEROMETER Surface Soil Moisture Time Series and Orbit product in High and Nominal Resolution [SSM.H/N.TS - SSM.H/N]

Surface soil moisture records are derived from the backscatter coefficient measured by the Scatterometer on-board the European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS-2) using the Technische Universität (TU) Wien soil moisture retrieval algorithm called WARP (WAter Retrieval Package). In the WARP algorithm, the relative surface soil moisture estimates, given in degree of saturation Sd, range between 0% and 100% are derived by scaling the normalized backscatter between the lowest/highest backscatter values corresponding to the driest/wettest soil conditions. Surface Soil Moisture - Time Series product: The products generated are the surface soil moisture time series, where for each grid point defined in a DGG (Discrete Global Grid) is stored the time series of soil moisture and its noise, the surface state flag, the geolocation and the satellite parameters. The spatial resolution of the products is about 25 km x 25 km (high resolution) or 50 km x 50 km (nominal resolution) geo-referenced on the WARP grid. The location of the points can be viewed interactively with the tool DGG Point Locator. Surface Soil Moisture - Orbit product: In addition to WARP, a second software package, referred to as WARP orbit, was developed in response to the strong demand of soil moisture estimates in satellite orbit geometry. The Level 2 soil moisture orbit product contains a series of Level 1 data information, such as the backscatter, the incidence angle and the azimuth angle for each triplet together with the surface soil moisture and its noise, normalized backscatter at 40° incidence angle, parameters useful for soil moisture, the geolocation and the satellite parameters. The soil moisture orbit product is available in two spatial resolutions with different spatial sampling distances: Spatial sampling on a regular 12.5 km grid in orbit geometry with a spatial resolution of about 25 km x 25 km (High resolution) Spatial sampling on a regular 25 km grid in orbit geometry with a spatial resolution of about 50 km x 50 km (Nominal resolution). The spatial resolution is defined by the Hamming window function, which is used for re-sample of raw backscatter measurements to the orbit grid in the Level-1 ground processor. Please consult the Product Quality Readme file before using the ERS-2 Surface Soil Moisture data.

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.

Data - Campaigns (Open)

THERMOPOLIS

The THERMOPOLIS 2009 campaign mainly served the DUE “Urban Heat islands (UHI) and Urban Thermography (UT) Project”

Campaign

THERMOPOLIS

The THERMOPOLIS 2009 campaign mainly served the DUE “Urban Heat islands (UHI) and Urban Thermography (UT) Project”

Mission - Heritage Missions

Landsat Series

The Landsat Series is the world's longest running system of satellites for moderate-resolution optical remote sensing for land, coastal areas and shallow waters.