News - Thematic area articles

Space data support Earth’s ecosystems

ESA’s Earth observation (EO) missions are making a critical contribution to monitoring transformations in our planet’s ecosystems, helping track changes in the vegetation, soil, and ocean that affect these systems.

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 - Infographics

Focusing on Envisat MERIS Full Resolution Level-2 data

ESA's Envisat mission continued and expanded upon the legacy of its predecessors, the ERS (European Remote Sensing) satellites. Operating between 2002 and 2012, the satellite's 10 instruments acquired a decade of data for many applications.

Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)

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 - Success Stories

New worldwide dataset captures the planet in fine detail

Scientists have developed an open source planetwide dataset of high-resolution Earth observation imagery, thanks to commercial data delivered by ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme.

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 - 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 - 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.

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.

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.

Data - Project Proposal (Restrained)

SPOT-6 to 7 full archive and tasking

The SPOT 6 and 7 satellites ensure data continuity with the no longer operational SPOT 5 satellite and provide an archive of very high resolution optical acquisition as well as the possibility to task the satellites for new acquisitions. Following the completion of the SPOT 7 mission in March 2023, new acquisition tasking is only available for the SPOT 6 satellite. The ortho-products are automatically generated by the SPOT 6 and 7 ground segment, based on SRTM database or Reference3D when available. The projection available for SPOT 6 and 7 ortho-products is UTM, datum WGS84. Bands combinations: Pansharpened: colour image at 1.5 m resolution Bundle: 1.5 m panchromatic image and 6 m multispectral image. Geometric processing levels: Primary: The Primary product is the processing level closest to the natural image acquired by the sensor. This product restores perfect collection conditions: the sensor is placed in rectilinear geometry, and the image is clear of all radiometric distortion. Standard Ortho: The Ortho product is a georeferenced image in Earth geometry, corrected from acquisition and terrain off-nadir effects. Tailored ortho: Aside from the Standard Ortho product, when different specifications are needed, a custom orthorectification, with a more precise 3D model provided by the client or acquired for the purpose, can be provided on demand. As per ESA policy, very high-resolution imagery of conflict areas cannot be provided.

News - Infographics

Envisat - ESA's versatile Earth observation satellite

Learn more about ESA's Envisat mission - the largest Earth observation satellite ever built - in a new infographic.

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

Data - Announcement of Opportunity (Restrained)

Announcement of Opportunity for G-POD

ESA is offering all scientists the possibility to perform bulk processing and/or validation of their own algorithms exploiting the large ESA Earth-observation archive.

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 approval (Restrained)

SPOT 6 and 7 ESA archive

The SPOT 6 and 7 ESA archive is a dataset of SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 products that ESA collected over the years. The dataset regularly grows as ESA collects new SPOT 6 and 7 products. SPOT 6 and 7 Primary and Ortho products can be available in the following modes: Panchromatic image at 1.5m resolution Pansharpened colour image at 1.5m resolution Multispectral image in 4 spectral bands at 6m resolution Bundle (1.5m panchromatic image + 6m multispectral image) Spatial coverage: Check the spatial coverage of the collection on a map available on the Third Party Missions Dissemination Service. As per ESA policy, very high-resolution imagery of conflict areas cannot be provided.