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 topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
ESA awarded a contract to Airbus to take the TRUTHS satellite mission to its next development phase, which focuses on the design of the satellite and its instruments involving building demonstration models of some of the key technologies. This next step also includes analysing the instruments’ performance, which includes exhaustive simulations and system modelling, to demonstrate their technical maturity.
ESA’s TRUTHS mission will provide traceable International System of Units (SI) measurements of incoming solar radiation and of radiation reflected from Earth back out into space, with which to calibrate data from other satellites and to provide high-accuracy Earth’s radiation data to climate modelling scientists.
The contract was signed at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. The photograph shows, left to right:
Antonino Spatola, Sales & Marketing Director, Teledyne e2v
Beth Greenaway, Chair of Space4Climate and Head of Earth Observation and Climate, UK Space Agency
David Masterson, Head of Future Programmes, Airbus UK
Simonetta Cheli, Director of Earth Observation Programmes at ESA
Paul Bate, CEO of UK Space Agency
Karen St Germain, Division Director of Earth Science, NASA
Donna Lyndsay, Vice Chair Space4Climate and Strategic Market Lead for Environment & Sustainability, Ordnance Survey
Rune Floberghagen, Head of Climate Action, Sustainability & Science Department at ESA
Read full story: Contract secures next step for TRUTHS climate mission