Candidate Earth Explorer mission reports now available

Over the last two years, the Agency has been working on the next generation of Earth Explorer candidate missions. The Earth Explorer User Consultation meeting will provide the forum for each of the six candidate missions to be reviewed by leading scientists from the Earth Science Community. After the meeting, the Earth Science Advisory Committee will provide its recommendations to the Agency as to which of the missions should be selected for development.

The scientific evaluation reports for each mission are now available and downloadable here:

EarthCare (Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer)
EarthCare is a joint European-Japanese mission that aims to measure clouds and aerosols and the geophysical parameters associated with them in order to minimise climate prediction uncertainty.
EarthCARE Mission Report (pdf)

SPECTRA (Surface Processes and Ecosystem Changes Through Response Analysis)
The objective of SPECTRA is to describe, understand and model the role of terrestrial vegetation in the global carbon cycle and its response to climate variability under the increasing pressure of human activity.
SPECTRA Mission Report (pdf)

WALES (Water vApour and Lidar Experiment in Space)
The objective of the WALES mission is to provide independent global water vapour profiles, covering the entire troposphere in clear and partially cloudy regions, with unprecedented accuracy and vertical resolution in support of climate research and numerical weather prediction applications and as a reference for other satellite sensors.
WALES Mission Report (pdf)

ACE+ (Atmosphere and Climate Explorer)
ACE+ aims to establish highly accurate and vertically resolved climatologies of humidity in the troposphere and of temperature in both the free troposphere and the stratosphere to validate and improve atmospheric models in support of climate research and numerical weather prediction.
ACE+ Mission Report (pdf)

EGPM (European contribution to the Global Precipitation Monitoring (GPM) mission)
EGPM is part of the bigger International GPM mission, which aims to measure precipitation all over the world every three hours. EGPM has its own unique objectives to measure light precipitation and snowfall.
EGPM Mission Report (pdf)

Swarm (a constellation of small satellites to study the dynamics of the Earth’s magnetic field)
Swarm will provide the best ever survey of the geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution, offering new insights into the composition and processes in the interior and the surroundings of the Earth, thereby improving our knowledge of the Earth’s interior and climate.
SWARM Mission Report (pdf)

The technical annexes describing the programmatic aspects of each mission will be available on this site next week.