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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.

  • CryoSat

    CryoSat determines variations in the thickness of continental ice sheets and marine ice cover. Europe's first ice mission is an advanced radar altimeter specifically designed to monitor the most dynamic sections of Earth's cryosphere.

  • SMOS

    The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is dedicated to making global observations of soil moisture over land and salinity over oceans.

  • Aeolus

    The Aeolus mission which was launched into space on 22 August 2018 and was retired on 30 April 2023, provided global observations of wind profiles from space to improve the quality of weather forecasts, and to advance our understanding of atmospheric dynamics and climate processes.

  • PROBA-1

    PROBA-1 is a technology demonstration satellite that later became an operational Earth observation mission.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • HydroGNSS

    HydroGNSS is a microsatellite mission, which is part of the Scout framework, and consists of a GNSS-R (Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry) constellation that primarily addresses land. Scout missions are a new element in ESA's Earth Observation FutureEO Programme.

  • NovaSAR-1

    Launched on 16 September 2018, NovaSAR-1 features an S-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instrument offering a variety of modes with different resolutions and swath widths.

  • TanSat

    The TanSat mission is one of the Earth Observation projects managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and is dedicated to detecting and monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

  • Vision-1

    Launched on 16 September 2018, Vision-1 offers orthorectified products with resolution up to 87 cm in panchromatic mode and 3.48 in multispectral mode as standard.

  • Pléiades Neo

    Pléiades Neo is a very high resolution optical constellation of two identical satellites phased at 180° from each other.

  • GHGSat

    The GHGSat mission is dedicated to measuring emissions of greenhouse gases.

  • Copernicus Sentinel-5P

    The Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor mission is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere.

  • Copernicus Sentinel-3

    Copernicus Sentinel-3 is an European Earth Observation satellite mission developed to support Copernicus ocean, land, atmospheric, emergency, security and cryospheric applications.

  • Copernicus Sentinel-2

    The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission comprises a constellation of two polar-orbiting satellites placed in the same sun-synchronous orbit, phased at 180° to each other.

  • GOSAT Series

    The GOSAT series is composed of two environment-monitoring satellites developed by JAXA dedicated to the observation of greenhouse gases.

  • NOAA POES

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

  • GOSAT-2

    GOSAT-2 (Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite-2) is a JAXA satellite dedicated to the observation of greenhouse gases.

  • Aura

    NASA's Aura mission studies the chemistry and dynamics of Earth's atmosphere from the ground through the mesosphere.

  • GRACE

    GRACE stands for the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and was a part of the international Earth Observing System (EOS) series of satellites.