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  • Documents (32)
  • Data - Sample Data (Open)

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    PlanetScope Sample Data

    Download free PlanetScope sample datasets to preview products available for this mission.

  • News - General News

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    Go-to guide to Third Party Mission data offering

    ESA’s latest Third Party Missions Data Access Guide has been published, providing technical details and information on available data collections for all current or past Third Party Missions.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    How to use space data to probe humankind’s ancient past

    Data disseminated by ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme are enabling archaeological investigations that could help to unravel the mysteries of past societies and cultures.

  • News - Infographics

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    Focusing on the PlanetScope ESA archive

    Learn more about the PlanetScope ESA Archive in our latest infographic.

  • 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 - Thematic area articles

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    Remote sensing data map impacts of natural hazards

    As climate change increases the frequency and severity of natural disasters, remote sensing data can warn about extreme events and help tackle emergency situations.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Remote sensing data underpin research on soil

    Environmental data disseminated by ESA’s Earth observation programmes provide knowledge about the stresses on Earth’s soils – aiding many applications such as crop management, drought and flood forecasting, and ecosystem protection.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    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 - Thematic area articles

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    How satellite data help to shape society

    Data from ESA’s Earth observation archives are improving understanding of the interactions between human activities and the environment, helping to power green economic development and boosting prosperity in Europe and beyond.

  • 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 - Data Release news

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    New Data Voucher for Planetscope on-demand

    ESA’s Third Party Missions Programme offers researchers, scientists and companies from around the world access to Planet’s high-frequency, high-resolution satellite data for non-commercial use.

  • News - Data Release news

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    Two new ESA archive collections have been opened for PlanetScope and SkySat

    PlanetScope ESA archive and SkySat ESA archive collections are available through ESA’s Third Party Missions programme via Fast Approval Registration.

  • News - Data Release news

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    PlanetScope and Skysat data available through ESA’s Third Party Missions Programme

    Through ESA’s Third Party Missions Programme, researchers, scientists and companies from around the world can apply to access Planet’s high-frequency, high-resolution satellite data for non-commercial use.

  • News - Success Stories

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    Predicting crop yield using Planet data

    The world’s population continues to grow, while the climate crisis is raising Earth’s temperatures and increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events – all of which affect food security.

  • News - Infographics

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    PlanetScope and SkySat - The high-resolution nanosatellite constellation

    Find out more about the PlanetScope and SkySat missions in our new infographic.

  • 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.

  • News - Thematic area articles

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    Satellite data boost global understanding of land surface

    Understanding our changing land surface is essential in the study of climate change. Satellites are used to monitor changes to the material that covers Earth’s surface, so-called land cover, such as vegetation and water.

  • 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.

  • News - Infographics

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    An overview of ESA's Third Party Missions programme

    ESA’s Third Party Missions programme consists of almost 50 satellite missions, which are owned by organisations around the world. ESA has agreements with these organisations to acquire, process, and distribute data from their missions