Directorate of Earth Observation Programme

Question 1

What is the ESA’s Earth Observation Programme?

Answer 1

ESA’s Earth Observation Programme

• monitor Earth’s environment and climate,
• supporting scientific research and
• helping in decision-making for environmental protection and sustainable development.

Question 2

What are the Sentinel missions and their purpose in ESA’s Earth Observation Programme?

Answer 2

• part of the Copernicus Programme,
• providing data for earth and ocean monitoring.
• 6 missions running,
• 6 expansion missions are planned.

Question 3

What are the Earth Explorer missions?

Answer 3

• focus on answering new scientific questions about the Earth and its environment,
• including
  • CryoSat (ice changes),
  • SMOS (soil moisture and ocean salinity), and
  • Aeolus (global wind profiles).

Question 4

What are some future missions planned under ESA’s Earth Observation Programme?

Answer 4

• CarbonSat to monitor greenhouse gases
• BIOMASS to measure forest biomass and assess carbon stocks

Question 5

What is Φsat-1 and its significance in ESA’s Earth Observation Programme?

Answer 5

• experimental satellite mission
• demonstrate the use of artificial intelligence processing Earth observation data directly on the satellite

Question 6

What is Φsat-2?

Answer 6

miniature satellite – a cubesat – designed to demonstrate how different Artificial Intelligence technologies can advance observing Earth from space.

Φsat-2’s Artificial Intelligence applications will:

• eliminate images that are cloudy
• detect and classify maritime vessels
• transform images into street maps for disaster response
• reduce data transfer amounts by encoding images which are then decoded on earth

Question 7

What is the Copernicus programme?

Answer 7

• Earth Observation Component of the European Union Space Programme
• aims at achieving a global, continuous, autonomous, high quality, wide range Earth observation capacity.
• Providing accurate, timely and easily accessible information to, among other things, improve the
  
  • management of the environment,
  • understand and mitigate the effects of climate change,
  • and ensure civil security.