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
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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
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The upcoming Copernicus Radar Observation System for Europe in L-band (ROSE-L) will provide continuous day-and-night all-weather monitoring of Earth’s land, oceans and ice, and offer frequent observations of Earth’s surface at a high spatial resolution.
ROSE-L will carry an active phased array synthetic aperture radar instrument. The radar antenna will be the largest deployable planar antenna ever built measuring an impressive 40 sq m.
ROSE-L will deliver many benefits including essential information on forests and land cover, leading to improved monitoring of the terrestrial carbon cycle and carbon accounting.
The mission will also greatly extend our ability to monitor minute surface displacements and helping detect geohazards. It will automatically map surface soil moisture conditions over land helping improve hydrology and weather forecasts, and support the operational monitoring of sea and land ice across the Arctic.
ROSE-L is one of six Copernicus Sentinel Expansion missions that ESA is developing on behalf of the EU. The missions will expand the current capabilities of the Copernicus Space Component – the world’s biggest supplier of Earth observation data.
This video features interviews with Malcolm Davidson, ROSE-L Mission Scientist, Nico Gebert, ROSE-L Payload Manager and Gianluigi Di Cosimo, ROSE-L Project Manager.