earth online
  • All Categories (79)
  • Data (3)
  • News (26)
  • Missions (2)
  • Events (10)
  • Tools (8)
  • Activities (1)
  • Documents (29)

NEWS

Discover the latest news on the European Space Agency's Earth Observation activities. Learn all about new data availability and how ESA's missions are performing.

  • News - Thematic area articles

    prompt photo
    7 Dec 2023

    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 - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    26 Oct 2023

    Monitoring the health of wheat crops from space

    Very high resolution space data can be used to improve the detection of a plant disease that impacts a major global cereal crop.

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    17 Aug 2023

    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 - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    5 June 2023

    TPM data help advance plastic litter detection from space

    Several innovative ESA Discovery element projects exploring remote sensing of plastic marine litter lean on commercial satellite data disseminated via the Agency’s Third Party Mission programme.

  • News - Infographics

    prompt photo
    22 Feb 2023

    Twin satellites - TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X

    DLR's TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X are twin satellites flying in close formation to acquire SAR data of unique geometric accuracy. Operating together, the missions deliver data that are used to generate Digital Elevation Models of Earth.

  • News - General News

    prompt photo
    16 Feb 2023

    International collaboration: Summarising ESA’s Third Party Missions

    ESA’s Third Party Missions programme consists of more than 50 missions from around the world. Learn more about the Third Party Missions in this video.

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    14 Feb 2023

    Space data unearths small-scale mining in Burkina Faso

    Satellite data from ESA’s Pléiades Third Party Mission and Copernicus Sentinel-2 were used to demonstrate that deep learning models can accurately and inexpensively identify artisanal and small-scale mining, even in challenging semi-desertic environments.

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    30 Jan 2023

    Showcasing success stories from ESA's Third Party Missions

    ESA’s Third Party Missions programme consists of more than 50 missions from around the world.

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    17 Jan 2023

    Pléiades unlocks information about rock glaciers in central Himalaya

    As climate change accelerates the melting of glacial ice, remote sensing scientists are tapping into the potential of Pléiades data to help vulnerable mountainous communities.

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    25 Aug 2022

    Tracking mountainous glaciers using TanDEM-X

    Ice melting from mountain glaciers is one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise outside the large ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. New research leveraging the vast data from the TanDEM-X mission, has successfully mapped glacial elevation change over multiple mountainous regions of the world.

  • News - Events and Proceedings

    prompt photo
    25 May 2022

    National missions in the spotlight at the Living Planet Symposium

    In the framework of ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme, the agency offers access to the full data archives of almost 50 satellite missions, which are owned by organisations around the world.

  • News - Thematic area articles

    prompt photo
    18 May 2022

    How ESA uses space data to explore deep Earth

    As anthropogenic activities continue to unbalance our environment, scientists strive to fully understand the intricate interactions within Earth’s system.

  • News - Thematic area articles

    prompt photo
    31 Mar 2022

    Satellite data central to ocean monitoring

    Over 95% of Earth’s water is found in our oceans, and yet sadly, oceans are under stress from climate change and pollution. Monitoring our oceans is vital for Earth’s survival and satellites are the primary means of long-term and independent observation of our vast ocean bodies and their associated coastal zones.

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    17 Mar 2022

    New open-source Python library improves rapid mapping services

    In emergency services, rapid response is paramount. ICube-SERTIT’s Rapid Mapping Service provides near real-time delivery of geo-information to help emergency services respond quickly to disasters such as flooding, fires and landslides. A new Python open-source library, called EOReader, speeds up this mapping response by enabling the easy opening of imagery from multiple satellite sensors, both optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    17 Dec 2021

    Pléiades celebrates 10 years and extends satellite fleet with Pléiades Neo

    ESA is proud to mark the 10-year milestone of the Pléiades programme, a forerunner in providing very high resolution (VHR) commercial satellite imagery ideal for precision mapping and in-depth intelligence.

  • News - Infographics

    prompt photo
    16 Dec 2021

    An overview of the very high-resolution Pleiades satellites

    Find out about the achievements of the Pléiades programme in this infographic.

  • News - Data Release news

    prompt photo
    7 Dec 2021

    TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X WorldDEM data now available to users

    WorldDEM products have been added to the TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X offering and are now available to users for research and application development following submission of a project proposal subject to evaluation and acceptance by ESA and the data owner.

  • News - Infographics

    prompt photo
    8 Nov 2021

    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

  • News - Events and Proceedings

    prompt photo
    25 Oct 2021

    Φ-Week Triumphs

    In its fourth edition, Φ-Week presented the scientific community with amazing opportunities and projects—thus running alongside innovation at 360 degrees.

  • News - Success Stories

    prompt photo
    8 Oct 2021

    Earth Observation data to improve navigation risk modelling and shipping routes

    With the increased frequency of shipping activities, such as tourism and transport of freights, navigation safety has become a major concern. Even if new technologies have already supplied aids to pilots for navigation risk reduction, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) reports that the majority of accidents could have been avoided by providing suitable input to the navigation decision-making process — this is where Earth Observation data can represent complementary information, to improve traffic monitoring and guidance along safe routes.