earth online
  • All Categories (5670)
  • Data (87)
  • News (112)
  • Missions (42)
  • Events (44)
  • Tools (19)
  • Activities (20)
  • Campaigns (4)
  • Documents (5342)

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 - Earth Explorers

    prompt photo

    FLEX

    The FLEX mission will provide global maps of vegetation fluorescence, which can be converted into an indicator of photosynthetic activity.

  • Mission - Earth Explorers

    prompt photo

    EarthCARE

    EarthCARE will examine the role clouds and aerosols play in trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth's surface.

  • Mission - Earth Watch

    prompt photo

    PROBA-V

    The PROBA-V mission provides multispectral images to study the evolution of the vegetation cover on a daily and global basis.

  • Mission - Third Party Missions

    prompt photo

    PROBA-1

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

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

    prompt photo

    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

    prompt photo

    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

    prompt photo

    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

    prompt photo

    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.

  • Mission - Third Party Missions

    prompt photo

    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.

  • Mission - Copernicus Sentinels

    prompt photo

    Copernicus Sentinel-5P

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

  • Mission - Copernicus Sentinels

    prompt photo

    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.

  • Mission - Copernicus Sentinels

    prompt photo

    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.

  • Mission - Third Party Missions

    prompt photo

    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

    prompt photo

    IRS-1C and IRS-1D

    The Indian Remote Sensing satellites IRS-1C and IRS-1D were identical Earth-imaging satellites operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

    prompt photo

    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.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

    prompt photo

    Landsat-4 and Landsat-5

    The Landsat-4 and Landsat-5 missions continued the Landsat programme's goal of providing moderate-resolution optical remote sensing for land, coastal areas and shallow waters.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

    prompt photo

    NOAA POES

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

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

    prompt photo

    Landsat-1 to Landsat-3

    The Landsat-1 to 3 satellites were the first in the United States' Landsat programme, dedicated to monitoring the Earth's land mass.

  • Mission - Heritage Missions

    prompt photo

    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

    prompt photo

    GEOSAT

    The GEOSAT series consists of GEOSAT-1 and GEOSAT-2 missions. They are Earth imaging satellites. GEOSAT-2, a high resolution satellite, became the first European fully-private satellite capable of providing sub-metric multi-spectral imagery.