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 - Spotlight on EO community

Meet a young researcher who studies the behaviour of volcanoes worldwide

Researcher Camila Novoa Lizama, of the University of Leeds, recently analysed how the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery over the Puyehue Cordón-Caulle Volcanic Complex, in Chile, acquired by ALOS-1, Envisat and the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites, helped her team to better comprehend the temporal and spatial behaviour of ground displacements before, during and after the volcano’s last eruption.

News - Thematic area articles

How ESA uses space data to explore deep Earth

As anthropogenic activities continue to unbalance our environment, scientists strive to fully understand the intricate interactions within Earth’s system.

News - Spotlight on EO community

Interviewing Mirko Albani

ESA’s Heritage Space Programme Manager describes the goals of the programme, some of the challenges involved in preserving and improving 40 years of historical Earth observation data, and his passion for curating this long-term archive.

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.

Event - Workshop

Fringe 2003 Workshop

The third ESA International Workshop on ERS SAR Interferometry and its first Workshop on ASAR interferometry: Advances in SAR interferometry from ERS and Envisat missions.

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

Release of new Envisat DORIS Precise Orbit data

A new version of the Envisat Precise Orbit products has been generated by the Centre de Traitement Doris Poseidon (CTDP) using the Geophysical Data Records F standards (GDR-F). The new dataset (DOR_VOR_AX vF) is now available to users in Envisat format from the ESA dissemination service.

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.

Document - General Reference

spaceborne-radar-applications-in-geology-an-introduction.pdf

This document is intended for geologists who are interested in broadening their knowledge of interpretation of imaging radar data. It introduces imaging radar as it may be used by technicians and image interpreters. Interferometric SAR is briefly treated, with some basic and practical hints. An illustrated application study on land subsidence is included.

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.

Tools - Other

Hydrology TEP

The Hydrology Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP) enables access, processing, uploading, visualisation, manipulation and comparison of hydrological data.

Tools - Other

Forestry TEP

The Forestry Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP) enables users in the forestry sector to access satellite data based processing services and tools for generating value-added forest information products.

Document - Proceedings

Fringe-2011-workshop-recommendations.pdf

This document contains the recommendations from the session summaries of the Fringe 2011 Workshop.

Event - Conference

GRSG 2015 Conference

The 26th Annual GRSG Conference 'Challenges in Geological Remote Sensing' focused on a wide range of remote sensing applications, tools, latest developments and sensors.

Event - Workshop

Fringe 2011 Workshop

Fringe 2011 was the 8th International Workshop on "Advances in the Science and Applications of SAR Interferometry".

Document - Product Specifications

Envisat products specifications - Volume 9 - DORIS products specifications

Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

ERS PRARE Precise Orbit Product (ERS.ORB.POD/ERS.ORB/PRC)

The precise orbit results from a data reduction process in which all available tracking data (Single-Lens Reflex, radar altimeter crossovers, PRARE range and Doppler data) and most accurate correction, transformation and dynamical models are taken into account and in which high level numerical procedures are applied. These orbits are "optimal" achievable representations of the real orbital motion under the circumstances of tracking situation and the "state of the art" model situation. The precise orbit product for the ERS satellites are the satellite ephemeris (position and velocity vector) including time tag, given in a well-defined reference frame, together with the nominal satellite attitude information and a radial orbit correction. Several orbit solutions are currently distributed: A new set of ORB POD (Precise Orbit Determination - REAPER v2) computed with the most updated model standards for the complete ERS-1 and ERS-2 mission. A previous set of ORB POD (REAPER v1) data already available on the ESA dissemination site since 2014, covering the ERS-1 full mission and the ERS-2 mission up to July 2003. ORB PRC which is the original Precise Orbit dataset computed during the ERS mission operations for ERS-1 and ERS-2. In the new POD dataset (REAPER v2) for the ERS-1 and ERS-2 missions, two different orbit solutions are provided together with the combined solution to be used for processing of the radar altimeter measurements and the determination of geodetic/geophysical products: those computed by DEOS (Delft Institute of Earth Observation and Space Systems), and those generated by ESOC (European Space Operations Centre) using different software (GEODYN and NAPEOS respectively). Careful evaluation of the various solutions of REAPER v2 has shown that the DEOS solution for both ERS-1 and ERS-2 has the best performance and is recommended to be used as reference. See the ERS Orbit Validation Report. For the previous version of the POD data set (REAPER v1), with ERS-2 mission data only up to 2003, three different orbit solutions together with the combined solution are available. These precise orbits for ERS-1 and ERS-2 have been computed at DEOS, ESOC, and GFZ (Deutschen GeoForschungsZentrums) using different software and different altimeter databases. Combined solutions have been created using three individual solutions for each satellite. All orbits were derived using consistent models in the same LPOD2005 terrestrial reference frame. These new orbit solutions show notable improvement with respect to DGME04 orbits (Scharroo and Visser, 1998). Thus, RMS crossover differences of new orbits improved by 4-9 mm. Careful evaluation of the various solutions has shown that the combined solution for both ERS-1 and ERS-2 has the best performance. All POD orbit files (REAPER v1/v2) are available in SP3c format.

Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

Envisat DORIS Doppler [DOR_DOP_1P]

This product was generated by the Centre de Traitement Doris Poseidon (CTDP). The DORIS Doppler product (DOR_DOP_1P) was consolidated offline 2-4 weeks after sensing and stored in the F-PAC archive. The file size is 0.5 Mbytes per orbit.

Data - Fast Registration with immediate access (Open)

Envisat DORIS Precise Orbit [DOR_VOR_AX]

The latest version of the Envisat DORIS Precise Orbit product, DOR_VOR_AX, was generated by the Centre de Traitement Doris Poseidon (CTDP) using the Geophysical Data Records F standards (GDR-F). The product is used to obtain the satellite orbital parameters (latitude, longitude, height and height rate) by using orbit computation routines. The most significant changes related to the GDR-F standards concern the new ocean tide model (FES2014) and the updated Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF2014). The new standards significantly improve all Precise Orbit Determination (POD) metrics with respect to GDR-E. The mean difference and variance of Sea Surface Height (SSH) at crossovers is slightly reduced. The DOR_VOR_AX product adopts the Envisat format, and the size is 0.2 Mbytes per orbit. Users are recommended to apply the GDR-F version, but the previous datasets are still available (i.e. GDR-D and GDR-E versions). See further details in the readme file for Envisat DORIS Precise Orbit Determination files. Comparison of Envisat Sea Level Anomaly trends obtained using DORIS Precise Orbit GDR-E and F standards. North/South patterns are evident. Credits: CNES/CLS.