The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicCarried on MetOp, ASCAT (Advanced Scatterometer) uses radar to measure electromagnetic backscatter from the wind-roughened ocean surface, from which data on wind speed and direction can be derived.
ASCAT will achieve near global coverage in five days with a repeat cycle of 29 days (412 orbits). Since observations are made using radar, ASCAT provides day- and night-time imaging capabilities and is not affected by cloud cover.
By making observations of the same point on the ground from three directions, ASCAT reduces any ambiguity in the data and hence leads to more accurate information on wind speed and wind direction to feed into meteorological forecasting models. In addition, the dual swathes provide over twice the coverage of the earlier instruments on ERS-1 and ERS-2.