Earth Explorer User Consultation Meetings

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Earth Explorer User Consultation Meetings

22 APR. 2026 3719

User Consultation Meetings are key milestones in the process of realising Earth Explorer satellite missions. These meetings follow the years of scientific and technical studies devoted to candidate mission concepts and the resulting reports for assessment and reports for selection.

User Consultation Meetings allow the science community to come together to discuss the merits of the candidates and lead to a recommendation as to which candidate should be put forward for further development or to be selected as the next Earth Explorer mission.

Earth Explorer 12

The first User Consultation Meeting for Earth Explorer 12 was held in Tallinn, Estonia, on 7–8 July 2026. The meeting covered four candidate missions: CryoRad, ECO, Hydroterra+ and Keystone. The meeting provided important input for the recommendation and decision-making process that will lead to the down-selection of two missions to proceed to the next stage of development. The down-selection will be announced later this year. The replay of the event has been split into seven videos.

Earth Explorer 11

The first User Consultation Meeting for Earth Explorer 11 was held on 10–11 October 2023 in Bucharest, Romania. The meeting covered four candidate missions: CAIRT, NITROSAT, SEASTAR and WIVERN. The replay of the event has been split into seven videos.

In November 2024, the decision was taken to proceed with CAIRT and WIVERN.

After further development, the two finalist candidate missions, CAIRT and WIVERN, were presented and debated at the final Earth Explorer 11 User Consultation Meeting, which took place on 9 July 2025 in Prague, Czechia. The replay of the event has been split into six videos.

In September, the decision was taken to implement WIVERN as Earth Explorer 11.

Earth Explorer 10

The User Consultation Meeting for Earth Explorer 10 was held on 5 July 2022 at ESA’s ESTEC establishment in the Netherlands. In this case, the Harmony mission is the only candidate for Earth Explorer 10. The mission would measure various aspects of ocean dynamics to understand how air and the ocean surface interact, which, in turn, will improve weather prediction and climate models.

Earth Explorer 9

The User Consultation Meeting was held on 16–17 July 2019 in Cambridge in the UK. The candidates were the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) mission and the Sea-surface Kinematics Multiscale monitoring (SKIM) mission. The replay of the event has been split into six videos.

FORUM was subsequently selected for implementation as ESA’s nineth Earth Explorer mission.

Earth Explorer 8

The User Consultation Meeting was held on 15–16 September 2015 in Krakow in Poland. The candidates were the CarbonSat mission and the Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) mission. The replay of the event has been split into six separate videos.

FLEX was subsequently selected for implementation as ESA’s eighth Earth Explorer mission.

Earth Explorer 7

The User Consultation meeting was held on 5–6 March 2013 in Graz in Austria. The candidates were the Biomass mission, the Cold Regions Hydrology and high-resolution Observatory (CoReH2O) mission and the Process Exploration through Measurement of infrared and millimetre-wave Emitted Radiation (PREMIER) mission. The replay of the event has been split into seven videos.

Biomass was subsequently selected for implementation as ESA’s eighth Earth Explorer mission.

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Earth Explorer User Consultation Meetings

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Scientific and technical mission documents

Earth Observation Programmes

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Earth Explorer 12 User Consultation Meeting

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