Living Planet Symposium Extra News: Day 4

The following 'extras’ are in addition to in-depth coverage on specific results presented at the symposium. 

Harmonising four decades of data to monitor land dynamics

While new discoveries and cutting-edge space technologies are in the spotlight at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium this week, there is also strong interest in how ESA is preserving – and crucially, harmonising – data from its heritage missions. By aligning these historical datasets with current and future observations, ESA is ensuring they remain a valuable resource for accurately monitoring and understanding our changing planet. 

ESA’s Fundamental Data Records Framework plays a key role in enhancing and standardising data from selected heritage missions. One such effort focuses on harmonising over 40 years of data from satellite scatterometers – radar instruments that measure the backscatter of microwave signals to observe surface roughness. 

These instruments provide critical insights into land surface dynamics. While the used to capture information on surface winds over oceans, over land, scatterometer data are used to monitor soil moisture, which is essential for agriculture, drought response, and hydrology, vegetation changes related to plant structure and water content, and surface water and flood events. 

In particular, attendees to the Living Planet Symposium have been hearing about the Fundamental Data Record for Land Dynamics (FDR4LDYN) project – part of ESA’s Heritage Mission Programme. 

Led by TU Wien in Austria in collaboration with TU Delft in the Netherlands, the FDR4LDYN project is developing a harmonised data record from ESCAT, the C-band scatterometers onboard ESA’s ERS satellites and laying the foundation for future interoperability with data from MetOp’s ASCAT and the upcoming MetOp-SG-B scatterometers –creating a unified, long-term dataset for land monitoring.  

ESA and TNFD join forces for nature-positive finance

ESA and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) signed a Memorandum of Intent that paves the way to integrating satellite data into global environmental reporting frameworks.  

The TNFD is a global initiative that offers a framework to help organisations identify, report on, and respond to emerging nature-related risks and opportunities, aiming to redirect global financial flows toward nature-positive outcomes. 

This newly signed agreement between ESA and TNFD aims to incorporate satellite data into environmental metrics to improve biodiversity monitoring and reporting.  

By providing financial institutions with reliable and timely insights into nature-related risks and opportunities, the partnership supports more sustainable investment decisions. This joint initiative also advances the creation of a standardised framework for evaluating and disclosing the ecological impacts of financial activities. 

ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Simonetta Cheli, said, “Signing this Memorandum of Intent reflects our strategic goal of ensuring that data from our Earth observing satellites directly supports sustainability goals.  

“Nature finance is emerging as a critical frontier, and the Earth observation sector can offer the transparency and accountability needed to support it.” 

“Working with the TNFD, we’re unlocking the potential of satellite technology to inform smarter, more responsible decision-making across the global economy.” 

By joining forces, ESA and TNFD are not only advancing science and finance –they’re creating a blueprint for how cross-sectoral collaboration can help safeguard our planet’s natural systems for future generations. 

Development contract for Scout Tango awarded to ISISPACE

Part of ESA’s FutureEO programme, the Scout missions complement the Earth Explorer missions. However, this new family of missions embraces the New Space era.  

Defined by rapid development and low-cost, each Scout mission must be delivered within three years from kick-off to launch and within a budget of just €35 million. 

These compact satellites are conceived to deliver cutting-edge science, either by miniaturising existing technologies or by pioneering new ways of observing Earth from space. 

With the industrial contract signed today, ISISPACE kicks off the development and builds the Tango Scout mission, which comprises two 25-kg satellites orbiting in tandem. One of the satellites will measure methane and carbon dioxide, and one will measure nitrogen dioxide.  

Tango is set to complement measurements of methane and nitrogen dioxide from the current Copernicus Sentinel-5P and the upcoming Sentinel-5 missions, as well as the Copernicus Carbon Dioxide Monitoring mission which will measure carbon dioxide. 

Tango will monitor 150–300 known large industrial facilities and power plants every four days, delivering high-resolution images of emission plumes as well as the surrounding pollution.  

ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Simonetta Cheli, said, “We are very happy to be here today at the Living Planet Symposium with our industrial partner ISISPACE to officially award the contract for the construction of the two Tango satellites. 

“As the prime contractor, ISISPACE will lead the development of Tango, supported by fellow Dutch companies TNO and SRON, forming a strong national consortium. 

“On the subject of Scout missions, we're also looking forward to the launch of our first Scout, HydroGNSS, later this year. This mission will use signals reflected off Earth’s surface from global navigation satellite systems to enhance our understanding of the water cycle – focusing on key variables such as soil moisture, wetlands and permafrost. 

“Alongside HydroGNSS, development is also well underway for our second Scout mission, NanoMagSat.  

“Altogether, it’s shaping up to be a very exciting year for the Scout missions – especially as we have also just selected a further four candidates for further study.”

Four new candidate Scout missions

The Scout programme continues to expand – following a recent evaluation of nine proposals, four promising candidates have been selected to be studied in detail over the next nine months, after which they will be further evaluated for selection.  

A milestone ESA also celebrated today with the candidate’s associated industrial leads. 

The four new candidate Scouts are: 

• A hyperspectral mission called HIBIDIS to study understorey biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Sitael in Italy is the prime contractor. 
• A mission called NAIAD that focuses on coastal and inland aquatic ecosystems to sediment and nutrient flows between the land, sea and atmosphere. SSTL in the UK is the prime contractor. 
• An infrared imaging mission, called SIRIUS to monitor urban heat islands and assess heat-related health risks. Thales Alenia Space in Spain is the prime contractor. 
• A mission called Sova-S to investigate atmospheric gravity waves and their impact on the upper atmosphere and thermosphere. OHB in Czechia is the prime contractor. 

ESA signs contract to establish a calibration and validation ‘supersite’

Also today, ESA signed a contract with the Finnish government and the Finnish Meteorological Institute, marking a formal step in establishing a ‘supersite’ for Earth observation calibration and validation in Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland.

This world-class site will bring benefits to both ESA, by helping to further ensure satellites deliver accurate data over high latitude environments, and to Finland by providing Finnish businesses with new opportunities to develop and test environmental sensors and technology.

Read more: ESA and Finland pave the way towards a supersite for Earth observation

 

Follow ESA's Earth observation page for more news from Living Planet Symposium 2025.