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MISSIONS

Explore the European Space Agency's Earth Observation satellite missions. Learn all about ESA's dedicated Earth Explorers or collaborations with other agencies through the Third Party Missions programme.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    MOS-1/1B

    MOS-1 and 1B, Japan’s first marine observation satellites, were designed to monitor ocean currents, sea surface temperature, atmospheric water vapour, ocean chlorophyll levels, precipitation, and land vegetation.

  • Mission - Third Party Missions

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    FSSCat

    The FSSCat mission was an innovative concept that consisted of two federated 6-Unit Cubesats, called ³Cat-5/A and ³Cat-5/B, which operated in support of the Copernicus Land and Marine Environment services.

  • Mission - Third Party Missions

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    WorldView-4

    WorldView-4 was an imaging and environment-monitoring satellite from Maxar of the United States, which offered very high resolution imagery.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    Envisat

    Envisat was ESA's successor to ERS. Envisat carried ten instruments aboard for a wide range of Earth observing fields. The mission was operational from 2002 to 2012.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    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.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    NOAA POES

    NOAA's AVHRR sensor is carried on the POES mission, a constellation of polar orbiting weather satellites.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    IRS-P6 (ResourceSat-1)

    IRS-P6 (also known as ResourceSat-1) launched on 17 October 2003 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre by the Indian PSLV-C5, and came to an end on 30 September 2013.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    SPOT 7

    SPOT 7 (also known as Azersky), like all of the other SPOT missions, was aimed at supplying high-resolution, wide-area optical imagery.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    SPOT 5

    SPOT 5, like all the SPOT missions, was aimed at supplying high-resolution, wide-area optical imagery.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    SPOT 4

    SPOT 4, like all the SPOT missions, was aimed at supplying high-resolution, wide-area optical imagery.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    SPOT 3

    SPOT 3, like all the SPOT missions, was aimed at supplying high-resolution, wide-area optical imagery.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    SPOT 2

    SPOT 2, like all the SPOT missions, was aimed at supplying high-resolution, wide-area optical imagery.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    SPOT 1

    SPOT 1 was designed to improve the knowledge and management of Earth's resources, detecting and forecasting phenomena involving climatology and oceanography, and monitoring human activities and natural phenomena.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    RapidEye

    Together, the five RapidEye satellites were capable of collecting over 4 million square kilometres of 5 m resolution, 5-band colour imagery every day.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    QuickBird-2

    QuickBird-2 was an Earth-imaging satellite. When launched in 2001, it was then the highest resolution commercial satellite.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    KOMPSAT-2

    KOMPSAT-2 (Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-2), also known as Arirang-2, was developed by KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute) to continue the observation programme of the KOMPSAT-1 mission.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

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    JERS-1

    The overall objectives of JERS-1 (Japanese Earth Resources Satellite) were the generation of global data sets with SAR and OPS sensors aimed at surveying resources, establishing an integrated Earth observation system

  • Mission - Third Party Missions

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    IRS-P5 (Cartosat-1)

    IRS-P5 (Cartosat-1) was a stereoscopic Earth observation satellite that generated Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and other value-added products.