- All Categories
- Data
- News
- Missions
- Events
- Tools
- Activities
- Instruments
- Campaigns
- Documents
Success Stories
Read articles about the successes of ESA's mission programmes and applications of the data obtained by the satellites.
News - Success Stories
16 May 2019A quarter of glacier ice in West Antarctica is now unstable
Scientists have discovered warming ocean waters have caused ice to thin so rapidly that 24% of glacier ice in West Antarctica is now affected.
News - Success Stories
6 Mar 2020Heritage data still widely used today
For about 30 years now, ESA satellites have been cruising some 800 km above our heads, collecting information about our planet-but why are older missions still so fundamental today?
News - Success Stories
1 Apr 2020New life for Landsat historical data
45 years of data, more than 1.8 million images, these are the numbers of an adventure started 48 years ago with the launch of the first Landsat satellite.
News - Success Stories
30 Apr 2020Mission continuity
Long-term availability of Earth observation data from a given instrument is crucial to many data users and their research—but just how does it work?
News - Success Stories
4 Mar 2021A stroll through Heritage Missions
At ESA's Earth Observation centre—ESRIN—in Frascati, Italy, there is a place where one can walk back in time, to better understand the history and importance of Heritage Missions and their data.
News - Success Stories
19 July 2021ERS Heritage Data allow for 30 years of science
At their time of launch thirty years ago, the two ERS satellites were the most sophisticated Earth observation spacecraft ever developed and launched by Europe.
News - Success Stories
11 Oct 2021ERS' Contribution to Altimetry
Satellite radar altimetry missions have transformed the way we see Earth and its oceans. Using the ranging capability of radars, they measure the surface topography profile along a satellite’s track.
News - Success Stories
27 Sept 2022Heritage data trains neural networks to detect urban sprawl
Using data from non-operational ESA remote sensing missions, researchers have trained a network of artificial neurons to recognise how cities change over decades. They hope this will help city planners reduce the impact that urbanisation has on the environment.