15:30 〜 16:30
[G07-P-01] Status of the ESA Earth Explorer missions
With the recent successes of ESA's Earth Observation Programmes, through the realization of highly successful Earth Explorers, the launch of the first in the series of operational Sentinel satellites for Copernicus, the development of sophisticated meteorological satellites, and with the rapidly increasing power of technologies for data processing, analysis and dissemination, Europe has entered a new era for the development and exploitation of Earth-observing satellites. An important part of these ESA Programmes are its science-driven Earth Explorer missions which are distinguished by unique scientific objectives, focused on some of today's most important urgent scientific concerns in order to respond to a broad range of demands, from the challenges of understanding climate change to supporting a multitude of human activities on Earth and measuring their impact on the natural environment.
As of today, four out of the seven approved Earth Explorer missions have been launched: GOCE (2009), SMOS (2009), CryoSat (2010), and Swarm (2013). The last three are successfully operating while GOCE reentered the atmosphere in 2013 as a successful conclusion to its extended mission. These satellites each carry fundamentally new instrument technologies and the data that they are reporting are yielding fundamentally new insights into different aspects of the Earth system. Four other Explorer missions: ADM-Aeolus, EarthCARE, Biomass and FLEX are in varying stages of development and are planned to be launched in the coming years.
This presentation will place the Earth Explorers in the context of ESA's Earth Observation Programmes, and will provide an overview of their respective scientific objectives and observational capabilities, together with some of the highlights of the Explorer missions in operation or main characteristics of the missions being currently built. Further, it will outline the expected next steps in the programme in the near future.
As of today, four out of the seven approved Earth Explorer missions have been launched: GOCE (2009), SMOS (2009), CryoSat (2010), and Swarm (2013). The last three are successfully operating while GOCE reentered the atmosphere in 2013 as a successful conclusion to its extended mission. These satellites each carry fundamentally new instrument technologies and the data that they are reporting are yielding fundamentally new insights into different aspects of the Earth system. Four other Explorer missions: ADM-Aeolus, EarthCARE, Biomass and FLEX are in varying stages of development and are planned to be launched in the coming years.
This presentation will place the Earth Explorers in the context of ESA's Earth Observation Programmes, and will provide an overview of their respective scientific objectives and observational capabilities, together with some of the highlights of the Explorer missions in operation or main characteristics of the missions being currently built. Further, it will outline the expected next steps in the programme in the near future.