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News - Thematic area articles
Remote sensing data map impacts of natural hazards
As climate change increases the frequency and severity of natural disasters, remote sensing data can warn about extreme events and help tackle emergency situations.
News - Events and Proceedings
Scientists to showcase value of Earth observation data at EGU
Remote sensing scientists are getting ready to present innovative and exciting applications of satellite data at the European Geosciences Union general assembly which will take place from 24 to 28 April in Vienna, Austria.
News - Data Release news
New collection open to users: FSSCat Hyperspectral products
As part of the ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) Programme, the FSSCat collection is now open to users, providing hyperspectral data coverage over some locations worldwide, as measured by the HyperScout-2 sensor.
Mission - Third Party Missions
FSSCat
The FSSCat mission is an innovative concept consisting of two federated 6-Unit Cubesats, called ³Cat-5/A and ³Cat-5/B, in support of the Copernicus Land and Marine Environment services.
Data - Data Description
FSSCat products
The FSSCat collection provides hyperspectral data coverage over a number of locations around the world, as measured by the HyperScout 2 sensor. The FSSCat hyperspectral data products are comprised of 50 spectral bands, covering a spectral range of 450 – 950 nm with a spectral resolution of 18 nm (at FWHM). Imagery is available with an along-track ground sampling distance (GSD) of 75 m. To ensure a high degree of radiometric accuracy, HyperScout 2 data are validated through comparison with Sentinel-2 data products. The processing level of the data is L1C – calibrated top-of-atmosphere radiance, reflectance or brightness temperature. The raster type of the L1C data product is a GRID – a 2D or 3D raster where the (geo)location of the data is uniquely defined by the upper left pixel location of the raster and the pixel size of the raster, and the projection parameters of the raster (if georeferenced). The third dimension can e.g. be a spectral or third spatial dimension. The L-1C VNIR data product includes a hyperspectral cube of TOA reflectance in the VNIR range, as well as relevant meta-data that adheres to EDAP's best practice guidelines. This product consists of georeferenced and ortho-rectified image tiles that contain spectral reflectance data at the top-of-the-atmosphere. Each image tile contains radiometrically corrected and ortho-rectified band images that are projected onto a map, as well as geolocation information and the coordinate system used. Additionally, each image pixel provides TOA spectral reflectance data in scaled integers, conversion coefficients for spectral radiance units, viewing and solar zenith and azimuth angles, and quality flags.
News - General News
Overachieving SMOS mission primed for continued success
ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) was the second Earth Explorer launched in 2009. Over 13 years on, having already vastly exceeded its predicted lifetime and initial objectives, the mission has been further extended until at least the end of 2025.
News - Thematic area articles
Remote sensing data underpin research on soil
Environmental data disseminated by ESA’s Earth observation programmes provide knowledge about the stresses on Earth’s soils – aiding many applications such as crop management, drought and flood forecasting, and ecosystem protection.
News - General News
ESA's excellent Earth Explorer missions extended to 2025
Since 2009, ESA’s Earth Explorer missions have pioneered breakthrough technologies and transformed our understanding of Earth’s system, from its core to the outer stretches of the atmosphere.
News - Thematic area articles
Monitoring water on Earth's surface
ESA's Earth observation satellites are playing a leading role in furthering our understanding of how Earth's terrestrial hydrosphere is being influenced by humankind.
Data - Announcement of Opportunity
Announcement of Opportunity for SAOCOM
In cooperation with CONAE (Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales), ESA is launching an Announcement of Opportunity for the international scientific community to access data from the SAOCOM mission for science and EO-based applications development.
Document - Newsletter
Earth Online Newsletter - 16 December 2022
This issue of the Earth Online Newsletter covers a selection of the latest news and events from ESA.
News - Thematic area articles
Global understanding of Earth's land surfaces greatly boosted by satellite data
ESA perform land surface monitoring with a range of instruments onboard satellites acquiring optical and radar data. Collections of data from these missions are freely available for research purposes.
News - Events and Proceedings
SMOS data advances space weather and ionospheric research
ESA is taking steps to innovate ways to use SMOS data to support solar scientists and the space weather community, as set out in a workshop held recently in ESRIN.
Document - Product Readme Note
SMOS-Wind-Data-Service-Read-Me-First-Note.pdf
A Read Me First Note for the SMOS Wind Data Service (SMOS Near Real Time Sea Surface Wind Speed Processor)
News - Data Release news
Minor Update for the SMOS Near Real Time Sea Surface Wind Speed Processor
An updated version of the SMOS Near Real Time Sea Surface Wind Speed Processor - Version 302 - was released on the 23 November 2022.
News - Infographics
An overview of ESA's Biomass Earth Explorer satellite
Learn about ESA's upcoming Biomass mission, which is dedicated to gathering information about the global distribution of forest biomass, in our latest infographic.
News - Success Stories
SMOS data improve estimates of rainfall in Africa
Scientists have used soil moisture data from ESA’s SMOS mission to correct high-resolution satellite-based estimates of precipitation in Africa.
News - Success Stories
Studying forest biomass from space
Forestry expert Maurizio Santoro, senior researcher at Gamma Remote Sensing and one of the leaders of ESA projects related to the Climate Change Initiative (CCI), explains how the use of various data.
Data - Data Description
PAZ ESA archive
The PAZ ESA archive collection consists of PAZ Level 1 data previously requested by ESA supported projects over their areas of interest around the world and, as a consequence, the products are scattered and dispersed worldwide and in different time windows. The dataset regularly grows as ESA collects new products over the years. Available modes are: StripMap mode (SM): SSD less than 3 m for a scene 30 km x 50 km in single polarization or 15 km x 50 km in dual polarisation ScanSAR mode (SC): the scene is 100 x 150 km2, SSD less than 18 m in signle pol only Wide ScanSAR mode (WS): single polarisation only, with SS less than 40 m and scene size of 270 x 200 km2 Spotlight modes (SL): SSD less than 2 m for a scene 10 km x 10 km, both single and dual polarization are available High Resolution Spotlight mode (HS): in both single and dual polarisation, the scene is 10x5 km2, SSD less than 1 m Staring Spotlight mode (ST): SSD is 25 cm, the scene size is 4 x 4 km2, in single polarisation only. The available geometric projections are: Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC): single look product, no geocoding, no radiometric artifact included, the pixel spacing is equidistant in azimuth and in ground range Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD): detected multi look product, simple polynomial slant-to-ground projection is performed in range, no image rotation to a map coordinate system is performed Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC): multi look detected product, projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid with no terrain corrections Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC): multi look detected product, projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid, the image distortions caused by varying terrain height are corrected using a DEM. The following table summarises the offered product types. EO-SIP product type Operation Mode Geometric Projection Geometric Projection PSP_SM_SSC Stripmap (SM) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_SM_MGD Stripmap (SM) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SM_GEC Stripmap (SM) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SM_EEC Stripmap (SM) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_SC_MGD ScanSAR (SC) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SC_GEC ScanSAR (SC) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SC_EEC ScanSAR (SC) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SC_SSC ScanSAR (SC) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_SL_SSC Spotlight (SL) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_SL_MGD Spotlight (SL) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SL_GEC Spotlight (SL) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SL_EEC Spotlight (SL) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_HS_SSC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_HS_MGD High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_HS_GEC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_HS_EEC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_ST_SSC Staring Spotlight (ST) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_ST_MGD Staring Spotlight (ST) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_ST_GEC Staring Spotlight (ST) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_ST_EEC Staring Spotlight (ST) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_WS_SSC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_WS_MGD Wide ScanSAR (WS) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_WS_GEC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_WS_EEC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC)
Campaign
SARSimHT
The main objective of “SARSimHT – Airborne SAR experiment to simulate Hydroterra data” was to demonstrate the image formation process of Hydroterra through the exploitation of a repeat-pass hyper-temporal airborne SAR image stack acquired over short time intervals representative of the Hydroterra mission.