The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The Passive Reflectometry and Interferometry System (PARIS) concept involves a dedicated constellation of satellites picking up reflected satnav signals from GPS, Galileo and other navigation satellite constellations to gather data on Earth's sea and land surfaces. Operating on the same basis and in a similar way as current radar altimeters and scatterometers, these returning signals can be used to build up global maps of sea-surface height and wind and wave measurement over the ocean, determine ice extent and thickness of the icecaps and indicate soil moisture and biomass across land.
(Figure courtesy of ADS-SAU).