ESA - Biomass

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The mission

Carrying a novel P-band synthetic aperture radar, the Biomass mission is designed to deliver crucial information about the state of our forests and how they are changing, and to further our knowledge of the role forests play in the carbon cycle.

The launch

Date: 2025
Site: Kourou, French Guiana
Rocket: Vega-C

1st P-band radar in space
666 km altitude
1250 kg mass
12 m diameter antenna

Biomass

10 remarkable Earth facts

18/04/2023 435441 views 2542 likes

Biomass satellite over forest

ESA’s forest satellite robust for launch

23/02/2023 4484 views 65 likes

Biomass instrument open

Biomass heads for the shaker

14/11/2022 2566 views 37 likes

Biomass mission

Enabling & Support

Forecasting performance of a space antenna – before it gets…

26/01/2022 3939 views 44 likes

Biomass’ 12-metre wire-mesh reflector

ESA’s Biomass on track to target forests

15/11/2021 5148 views 64 likes

Biomass open-source computing project BioPAL goes live

More items

Applications
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Applications
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Story
Applications
Documents and publications

19/03/2021 596 views 4 likes
Read

Discover Biomass

Earth’s lungs

Introducing Biomass

3757 views 3 likes

ESA’s forest mission

Facts and figures

2453 views 6 likes

Tropical forest

Earth’s forests and climate

1033 views 1 likes

Measuring biomass

Measuring biomass

1963 views 3 likes

Biomass satellite platform

The satellite

1639 views 2 likes

Biomass mock up being tested

The instrument

2477 views 8 likes

Vega

The launch

3074 views 3 likes

Kiruna station

Operations and data flow

1202 views 0 likes

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