ARCHIVE CONTENT
22 MAR. 2004
publication date
1277
Views
In connection with the Earth Explorer User Consultation meeting to be held on 19-20 April at ESA’s ESRIN facility in Frascati Italy, the six candidate Earth Explorer Mission reports for selection are now available and downloadable from this website.
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:
Media modal
EarthCARE
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.
Media modal
SPECTRA
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.
Media modal
WALES
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.
Media modal
ACE+
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.
Media modal
EGPM
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.
Media modal
Each Swarm satellite will be eight metres long
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.
The technical annexes describing the programmatic aspects of each mission will be available on this site next week.
Media modal
SPECTRA Mission Report
WALES Mission Report
ACE+ Mission Report
Media modal
Related links
Earth Explorer User Consultation Meeting
ESA to select new Earth Explorer missions
An important milestone for ESA’s Living Planet Programme is to be reached this spring when it will be decided which of the six candidate Earth Explorer missions are to be selected for development. Before decisions are taken, the user community is invited to express their views at the Earth Explorer User Consultation Meeting which will be held on 19-20 April at ESA’s ESRIN facility in Frascati, Italy.
Share this page
stay updated
Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest news, mission updates, and exclusive insights directly in your inbox. Be the first to know about our upcoming projects and breakthroughs.