Earth Observation Envelope Programme

The Earth Explorers are research missions designed to address key scientific challenges identified by the science community while demonstrating breakthrough technology in observation techniques. As such they call for innovative and state-of-the art solutions from the industry.

There are seven approved Earth Explorer missions, the latest being Biomass: ESA's forest mission.Candidates for the eighth Earth Explorer mission are the Florescence Explorer (FLEX) and the CarbonSat mission both currently in development Phase A/B1.

Earth Observation Preparatory activities address the preparation of new missions as well as additional preparatory activities on EO science, technology and mission concepts, covering in particular the next Earth Explorer missions.

Instrument Pre-Development addresses the risk retirement of instruments prior to project commitment of Explorer and Pre-Operational missions. It comprises the development of critical instrument elements and instrument models to a sufficient level, to demonstrate the overall performance against clearly defined requirements.

EO programmes enable the development of new products and applications in several disciplines from the myriad of current and future earth observation missions ranging from meteorology to agriculture, urban developments, forests and polar regions. Turning data into operational services requires the development of long-term relationships between research institutes, service organisations and user communities. ESA's Data User Element (DUE) aims to raise awareness with respect to the applicability of Earth observation in day-to-day operations. ESA's Value Adding Element (VAE) complements the DUE by providing the framework for organising service chains capable of leveraging Earth observation data into commercial tools (link to EOMD opportunity pages).