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ENVISAT

Launched in March 2002, Envisat is the largest Earth Observation spacecraft ever built. It carries ten sophisticated optical and radar instruments to provide continuous observation and monitoring of the Earth's land, atmosphere, oceans and ice caps. Envisat data collectively provide a wealth of information on the workings of the Earth system, including insights into factors contributing to climate change.

Its largest single instrument is the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR), operating at C-band, ensures continuity of data after ERS-2. It features enhanced capability in terms of coverage, range of incidence angles, polarisation, and modes of operation. The improvements allow radar beam elevation steerage and the selection of different swaths, 100 or 400km wide.

The Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) is a imaging spectrometer that measures the solar radiation reflected by the Earth, at a ground spatial resolution of 300m, with 15 spectral bands in visible and near infra-red and programmable in width and position. MERIS allows global coverage of the Earth every 3 days.

The primary mission of MERIS is the measurement of sea colour in oceans and coastal areas. Knowledge of sea colour can be converted into a measurement of chlorophyll pigment concentration, suspended sediment concentration and aerosol loads over marine areas. It is also used for land and atmospheric monitoring.

The overall objectives of Envisat are:

  • Studying and monitoring the Earth's environment on various scales, from local through regional to global.
  • Monitoring and management of the Earth's resources, both renewable and nonrenewable.
  • Continuation and improvement of the services provided to the worldwide operational meteorological community.
  • Contribution to the understanding of the structure and dynamics of the Earth's crust and interior.
Major disciplines covered: meteorology, climatology, environment, atmospheric chemistry, vegetation, hydrology, land use, ocean and ice processes.

Owner: ESA


Status: Ongoing

Start Date: March 2002

RELATED RESOURCES

Instruments Datasets GMES Services

DORIS - Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite

The Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite instrument is a microwave tracking system that can be utilized to determine the ... more ...

LRR - Laser Retro-Reflector

The Laser Retro-Reflector (LRR) is mounted on the Earth-facing panel of Envisat close to the RA-2 antenna to support satellite ranging for precise orb ... more ...

MERIS

Envisat's MERIS (Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer Instrument) is a programmable, medium-spectral resolution, imaging spectrometer operating in t ... more ...

ASAR - Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar

Envisat's Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR), operating at C-band, ensures continuity with the image mode (SAR) and the wave mode of the ERS-1/2 ... more ...

AATSR - Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer

Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) is one of the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) instruments on board the European Space Agency (ESA) s ... more ...

MWR - MicroWave Radiometer (ENVISAT)

The main objective of the microwave radiometer (MWR) is the measurement of the integrated atmospheric water vapour column and cloud liquid water conte ... more ...

RA-2 - Radar Altimeter 2

The Envisat's Radar Altimeter 2 (RA-2) is an instrument for determining the two-way delay of the radar echo from the Earth's surface to a very high pr ... more ...

SCIAMACHY

Envisat's SCIAMACHY is an imaging spectrometer whose primary mission objective is to perform global measurements of trace gases in the troposphere and ... more ...

GOMOS

Envisat's GOMOS is a medium resolution spectrometer covering the wavelength range from 250 nm to 950 nm. The high sensitivity requirement down to 250 ... more ...

MIPAS - Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding

The Envisat's Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) is a Fourier transform spectrometer for the measurement of high-resolu ... more ...

Emergency Rapid mapping in HR Optical & cross-cutting issues

Rapid mapping in response to meteorological, geophysical risks and complex humanitarian crisis.

Temporal extent of dataset: 2009 and 2010, Arch ... more ...

Earthquakes Europe/RoW VHR & HR SAR

Earthquakes Europe/RoW VHR & HR SAR

Temporal Extent of dataset 2009 and 2010, Archive

This dataset is built using instruments from:
more ...

Data for methane (CH4) atmospheric composition monitoring and forecasting

Atmospheric composition analysis and forecast.
Data to be used for assimilation of methane in near-real-time atmospheric composition analysis and ... more ...

Data for carbon monoxide (CO2) atmospheric composition monitoring and forecasting

Atmospheric composition analysis and forecast.

Data to be used for assimilation of carbon monoxide for near-real-time atmospheric composition ... more ...

Systematic Global and Regional sea surface temperature data

Global and regional sea surface temperature, continuous tracking over oceans including reprocessing of archived data for climatic application, when im ... more ...

Regional Sea Ice Monitoring in Southern Greenland waters

Regional Sea Ice monitoring in Southern Greenland Waters, to provide all-year regional monitoring and forecasting services including input to ocean/se ... more ...

Emergency Background reference mapping in MR/LR SAR

Emergency Background reference mapping in MR/LR SAR

Temporal Extent of dataset 2009 and 2010

This dataset is built using instruments f ... more ...

Systematic Global and Regional Altimeter/ Sea Level data

Global and regional sea level, continuous tracking over oceans including reprocessing of archived data for climatic application, when improved algorit ... more ...

Data for ozone (O3) atmospheric composition monitoring and forecasting

Atmospheric composition analysis and forecast.
Data to be used for assimilation of ozone in near-real-time atmospheric composition analysis and f ... more ...

Regional Sea Ice Monitoring in Davis Strait and Labrador Sea

Regional Sea Ice monitoring in Davis Strait and Labrador Sea, to provide all-year regional monitoring and forecasting services in the polar regionsand ... more ...

Sea Ice Monitoring in Antarctica

Regional Sea Ice monitoring in Antarctica, to provide all-year monitoring and forecasting services in the Antarctic waters using satellite earth ob ... more ...

Data for carbon monoxide (CO) atmospheric composition monitoring and forecasting

Atmospheric composition analysis and forecast.

Data to be used for assimilation of carbon monoxide for near-real-time atmospheric composition ... more ...

Water Quality Monitoring HR SAR

Water Quality Information services for water framework directive reporting, bathing water monitoring, aquaculture monitoring, large scale marine infra ... more ...

Emergency Background reference mapping in HR SAR

Emergency Background reference mapping in HR SAR

Temporal extent of dataset 2009 and 2010

This dataset is built using instruments from ... more ...

Global/Regional Systematic Ocean colour data

Global and regional Ocean colour, continuous tracking over oceans, including reprocessing of archived data for climatic application, when improved alg ... more ...

Sea Ice Monitoring in Eurarctic3

Regional Sea Ice monitoring in Eurarctic3, to provide all-year monitoring and forecasting services in the inner Arctic using satellite earth observati ... more ...

Rapid Landslide mapping InSAR (Europe)

Rapid Landslide mapping following emergencies induced by landslides

Reference year: 2009 for new acquisitions, 2007 for optical archive, from 1 ... more ...

Data for formaldehyde (HCHO) atmospheric composition monitoring and forecasting

Atmospheric composition analysis and forecast.
Data to be used for assimilation of formaldehyde in near-real-time atmospheric composition analysis ... more ...

Landslide monitoring & Inventory Mapping & Service Evolution InSAR

Landslide monitoring & Inventory Mapping & Service Evolution InSAR (Mediterranean, Alpine, Eastern Europe, outside Europe)

Temporal Extent of ... more ...

Emergency Rapid/Online mapping in HR SAR & cross-cutting issues

Emergency Rapid/Online mapping in HR SAR & cross-cutting issues

Temporal Extent of dataset 2009 and 2010, Archive

This dataset is built ... more ...

Systematic Global LR Land Coverage

Weather and climate variability: low resolution multi-model carbon accounting system accounting for weather and climate variability, coupled with EO d ... more ...

Sea Ice Monitoring in Eurarctic2

Regional Sea Ice monitoring in Eurarctic2, to provide all-year large scale monitoring and forecasting services in the Arctic including input to ocean/ ... more ...

Science based remote sensing services to support REDD and sustainable forest management in tropical region SAR

Development of service capabilities to support fighting deforestation and forest degradation in the tropical region.

Security Core Service

The purpose of the GMES Security Core Service (SEC) is to support at global level all stages of intervention cycle from early warning, to crises manag ... more ...

Atmosphere Core Service

The purpose of the GMES Atmospheric Pilot Service is to provide coherent information on atmospheric variables in support of European policies and for ... more ...

Emergency Core Service

The purpose of the GMES Emergency Response Core Service (ERCS) is to support at global level all stages of intervention cycle from early warning, to c ... more ...

Land Core Service

The goal of the Land Monitoring Core Service (LMCS) is to provide timely, continuous and independent observations about the use of land resources and ... more ...

Marine Core Service

The purpose of the Marine Core Services is to make available and deliver a set of services for forecasting, monitoring and reporting on the ocean stat ... more ...