ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Volker Liebig, at the Space for Ocean Monitoring event on 8 July 2014 at Thales Alenia Space in France. Officials from ESA, the French space agency CNES, Eumetsat and the European Commission along with scientists and data users discussed the evolving needs of satellite measurements for operational oceanography, noting that Sentinel-3 is Europe’s most important upcoming mission for observing the oceans.