- All Categories (67179)
- Data (320)
- News (129)
- Missions (84)
- Events (206)
- Tools (61)
- Activities (77)
- Campaigns (106)
- Documents (65611)
Success Stories
Read articles about the successes of ESA's mission programmes and applications of the data obtained by the satellites.
News - Success Stories
26 Mar 2024Ten years of Swarm data help reveal processes in Earth’s core
The tenth birthday of ESA’s three-satellite Swarm constellation has been a game changer for research into Earth’s magnetic field and core dynamics, as set out by an ESA-funded project.
News - Success Stories
14 Mar 2024How scientists are unlocking the potential of SAOCOM
A team of scientists has drawn on SAOCOM data to measure the heights of forests in Argentina, marking the first time that tree canopies have been mapped using the two-satellite constellation.
News - Success Stories
7 Mar 2024Magnetic magic: 10 reasons to be excited about Swarm
In November 2023, Swarm celebrated an impressive ten years in orbit. In that time, ESA’s magnetic mission has honed in on all sorts of mysteries - from tussling magnetic blobs to animal migration.
News - Success Stories
7 Feb 2024Trailblazing ERS-2 mission enables climate change applications
As ESA’s ERS-2 satellite approaches Earth’s atmosphere for reentry, it’s time to reflect on the mission’s great achievements in powering climate-related applications.
News - Success Stories
5 Dec 2023CryoSat land ice data track destabilisation of Antarctic glacier
Even apparently stable glaciers in Antarctica are at risk of losing large quantities of ice due to warming seas. The warning comes after satellite data showed the Cadman glacier – previously stable for 50 years - retreated by 8 km between November 2018 and May 2021.
News - Success Stories
4 Dec 2023Discover Earth like never before: the HEDAVI tool
The Heritage Data Visualisation tool, or HEDAVI, enables the analysis of global spatio-temporal dynamics of natural and artificial environments, covering over 40 years of ESA Earth Observation Heritage data, Third Party Missions and some Copernicus data.
News - Success Stories
24 Nov 2023CryoSat safe and sound
A fuel leak aboard the CryoSat satellite threatened to bring the mission to an end in 2025 however operators at ESOC initiated a swap to a back-up system thus saving the satellite for years to come.
News - Success Stories
23 Nov 2023ESA promotes radio frequency monitoring as Spire becomes TPM
The global company Spire, which specialises in using continuous global monitoring to track aircraft, ships and weather patterns using a large constellation of CubeSats, is now an ESA Third Party Mission.
News - Success Stories
22 Nov 2023Swarm set for continued success after 10 years in orbit
ESA’s mission to unravel the mysteries of Earth’s magnetic field has just reached a decade of successful operations.
News - Success Stories
26 Oct 2023Monitoring 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
27 Sept 2023ESA supports calibration and validation of space data for New Space
As New Space providers expand the global offering of remote sensing data, there is an elevated need for harmonisation in calibration and validation (Cal/Val) approaches. ESA is taking steps to bolster best practices in Cal/Val, while also fostering innovation, as set out in a workshop this November.
News - Success Stories
21 Sept 2023Rome supersite helps validate atmospheric space data
In the sprawling, urban area of Rome, where atmospheric composition is impacted by complex coastal weather and pollution, ESA supports a powerful observatory spread across several locations.
News - Success Stories
13 Sept 2023ESA Earth observation archives preserved in Arctic vault
ESA has added to its store of Earth observation records housed in a secure vault in the Norwegian Arctic, ensuring that knowledge from a crucial chapter in European remote sensing history is safeguarded for future generations.
News - Success Stories
31 Aug 2023New CryoSat data to boost understanding of the oceans
A new CryoSat sea level anomaly product designed to enable ocean science and the development of operational marine applications has been released.
News - Success Stories
30 Aug 2023Synergy of space data helps modernise irrigation systems
The growing demands on agriculture, coupled with the climate crisis, are pressurising Earth’s valuable freshwater resources and making assessment of water practices ever more important.
News - Success Stories
22 Aug 2023Commercial space data help to regreen grasslands in Africa
Commercial satellite imagery made available through ESA’s Third Party Missions programme is guiding an ambitious community-focused initiative to regrow natural grasslands in Sub-Saharan Africa.
News - Success Stories
17 Aug 2023Commercial 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
17 July 2023Young scientists bid farewell to ESA's wind mission
Students and early career researchers are saying an emotional goodbye to Aeolus ahead of its upcoming reentry.
News - Success Stories
29 June 2023ESA missions help to reveal worldwide lake water loss trend
Climate change, human consumption and sedimentation are depleting more than half of the world’s biggest lakes of water, according to a ground-breaking analysis that drew on three decades of satellite data.
News - Success Stories
5 June 2023TPM 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.