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  • News (12)
  • Missions (3)
  • Events (2)
  • Tools (1)
  • Activities (3)
  • Documents (47)
  • News - Spotlight on EO community

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    Introducing the EarthCARE Mission Manager

    In this video, Björn Frommknecht describes his role as Mission Manager of EarthCARE, and what he enjoys most about his involvement with this upcoming Earth Explorer.

  • News - Success Stories

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    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.

  • News - Infographics

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    EarthCARE - ESA's cloud, aerosol and radiation explorer mission

    Learn about ESA’s upcoming cloud, aerosol and radiation explorer mission – EarthCARE – in our latest infographic.

  • News - Data Release news

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    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 - Events and Proceedings

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    National missions in the spotlight at the Living Planet Symposium

    In the framework of ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme, the agency offers access to the full data archives of almost 50 satellite missions, which are owned by organisations around the world.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Space data help to unravel the complexities of Earth’s atmosphere

    As the impacts of the climate crisis intensify, scientists are using ESA’s Earth observation archives to investigate atmospheric processes and their influences on the planet’s changing environment.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Satellite data central to ocean monitoring

    Over 95% of Earth’s water is found in our oceans, and yet sadly, oceans are under stress from climate change and pollution. Monitoring our oceans is vital for Earth’s survival and satellites are the primary means of long-term and independent observation of our vast ocean bodies and their associated coastal zones.

  • News - Data Release news

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    New Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 data now available

    Within ESA’s Landsat offering, access to the European coverage of Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 data is now available.

  • Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

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    Landsat 8 Collection 2 European Coverage

    This dataset contains the European coverage of Landsat-8 Collection 2 data, both Level-1 and Level-2, acquired since the beginning of the mission. Landsat-8 Collection 2 is the result of a reprocessing effort on the archive and on newly acquired products with significant improvement with respect to Collection 1 on data quality, obtained by means of advancements in data processing and algorithm development. Primarily, this involves a relevant improvement in the absolute geolocation accuracy (now re-baselined to the European Space Agency Copernicus Sentinel-2 Global Reference Image (GRI) but also includes updated digital elevation modelling sources, improved Radiometric Calibration (even correction for the TIRS striping effect), enhanced Quality Assessment Bands, updated and consistent metadata files and usage of Cloud Optimised Georeferenced (COG) Tagged Image File Format. Landsat-8 Level-1 products combine data from the two Landsat instruments, OLI and TIRS. The Level-1 products generated can be either L1TP or L1GT: L1TP - Level-1 Precision Terrain (Corrected) (L1T) products: Radiometrically calibrated and orthorectified using ground control points (GCPs) and digital elevation model (DEM) data to correct for relief displacement. The highest quality Level-1 products suitable for pixel-level time series analysis. GCPs used for L1TP correction are derived from the Global Land Survey 2000 (GLS2000) data set. L1GT - Level-1 Systematic Terrain (Corrected) (L1GT) products: L1GT data products consist of Level-0 product data with systematic radiometric, geometric and terrain corrections applied and resampled for registration to a cartographic projection, referenced to the WGS84, G873, or current version. The dissemination server contains three different classes of Level-1 products Real Time (RT): Newly acquired Landsat-8 OLI/TIRS data are processed upon downlink but use an initial TIRS line-of-sight model parameters; the data are made available in less than 12 hours (4-6 hours typically). Once the data have been reprocessed with the refined TIRS parameters, the products are transitioned to either Tier 1 or Tier 2 and removed from the Real-Time tier (in 14-16 days). Tier 1 (T1): Landsat scenes with the highest available data quality are placed into Tier 1 and are considered suitable for time-series analysis. Tier 1 includes Level-1 Precision and Terrain (L1TP) corrected data that have well-characterized radiometry and are inter-calibrated across the different Landsat instruments. The georegistration of Tier 1 scenes is consistent and within prescribed image-to-image tolerances of ≦ 12-metre radial root mean square error (RMSE). Tier 2 (T2): Landsat scenes not meeting Tier 1 criteria during processing are assigned to Tier 2. Tier 2 scenes adhere to the same radiometric standard as Tier 1 scenes, but do not meet the Tier 1 geometry specification due to less accurate orbital information (specific to older Landsat sensors), significant cloud cover, insufficient ground control, or other factors. This includes Systematic Terrain (L1GT) and Systematic (L1GS) processed data. Landsat-8 Level-2 products are generated from L1GT and L1TP Level-1 products that meet the <76 degrees Solar Zenith Angle constraint and include the required auxiliary data inputs to generate a scientifically viable product. The data are available a couple of days after the Level-1 T1/T2. The Level-2 products generated can be L2SP or L2SR: L2SP - Level-2 Science Products (L2SP) products: include Surface Reflectance (SR), Surface Temperature (ST), ST intermediate bands, an angle coefficients file, and Quality Assessment (QA) Bands. L2SR - Level-2 Surface Reflectance (L2SR) products: include Surface Reflectance (SR), an angle coefficients file, and Quality Assessment (QA) Bands; it is generated if ST could not be generated. Two different categories of Level-1 products are offered: LC with Optical, Thermal and Quality Map images, LO with Optical and Quality Map images (Thermal not available). For the Level-2 data, only LC combined products are generated.

  • News - Data Release news

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    New Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 data available from January

    From the beginning of 2022, ESA will start the distribution of the European coverage of Landsat-8 Collection-2 Level 1 and Level 2 products.

  • Document - Algorithms Theoretical Baseline Document

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    EarthCARE-CPR-L1B-ATBD.pdf

    This document describes the theoretical basis of Level 1b algorithm, except for the spacecraft data processing, for the EarthCARE Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR).

  • Document - Product Document

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    EarthCARE-CPR-L1B-PDD.pdf

    The purpose of this document is to specify the format and content of the L1 products for the EarthCARE CPR (Cloud Profiling Radar).

  • Event - Conference

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    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.

  • Tools - Visualisation

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    EVDC Orbit Prediction Tool

    The EVDC Orbit Prediction and Overpass Tool generates and visualises satellite's overpasses.

  • Data - Announcement of Opportunity (Restrained)

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    CLOSED - EarthCARE Calibration and Validation Announcement of Opportunity

    ESA offered an announcement of opportunity to support the calibration and validation of EarthCARE products. This opportunity closed in 2017.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    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.

  • Activity - Quality

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    EDAP

    The ESA Earthnet Data Assessment Pilot (EDAP) project will perform assessments for various missions to ensure the delivered data is fit for purpose.

  • Activity - Cal/Val activities

    S2L8VegStruc

    The Retrieval of vegetation structural variables from Sentinel-2/Landsat 8 time series study's objective is to test and validate the capabilities for the retrieval of structural variables.

  • Activity - Cal/Val activities

    MBASSS

    Mer Bleue Arctic Surrogate Simulation Site (MBASSS) Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 Validation Project objectives are to develop capability to validate Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager land data products.

  • Event - Meeting

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    VH-RODA and CEOS SAR workshop

    The workshop provided an open forum for the presentation and discussion of current status and future developments related to the calibration and validation of space borne very high-resolution SAR and optical sensors and data products.