278
Chapter 27
over full responsibility for the mission, and who will guarantee the data
exploitation. A possible candidate as an Earth Watch mission is one
dedicated to land applications (crop forecast, damage assessment, forestry,
land-use) which includes optical instruments as the payload.
The Earth Explorer missions can be viewed as both, research and
demonstration missions (technology demonstrator) so they pave the way for
the Earth Watch missions. The strong link lies in their complementarity and
its implementation from research (Earth Explorer) to operation (Earth
Watch). The main difference is in their funding and selection mechanism.
7.
CONCLUSIONS
A satisfactory pursuit to respond to the ENAMORS questions and the
advancement of EO capabilities is tried to be achieved by ESA with the
competent support of the European User/Science community. This will
allow ESA to develop optical remote sensing instruments providing the
required spatial, radiometric, spectral and temporal resolution for land
observations and advancing retrieval algorithms, which bears the opportunity
for novel applications. Surface/atmospheric exchange processes are being
studied to advance our understanding of ecosystems. A more accurate
knowledge of these processes is needed to improve climate predictions.
Spatially distributed information on the bio-geophysical properties and
temporal changes of the terrestrial ecosystems, as provided by satellites, are
the requisite inputs for work in this area. The Land-Surface Processes and
Interactions Mission will enable for the first time and with detailed spectral
and directional coverage the observation of important geophysical variables
at the appropriate scale, this responding to the ENAMORS objective.
Within the frame of ESA’s planned post 2000 mission programs, the
Earth Explorer and Earth Watch missions, optical remote sensing system,
particularly designed for land observation are proposed for implementation.
8.
REFERENCES
ESA (1995) New Views of the Earth, Scientific Achievements of ERS-1, ESA-SP 1176/I,
Noordwijk.
ESA (1998a) Further achievements of the ERS missions, ESA-SP 1228, Noordwijk.
ESA (1998b) The Science and Research Elements of ESA’s Living Planet Programme, ESA
SP-1227, Noordwijk.
ESA (1996) The Nine Candidate Earth Explorer Missions, ESA SP-1196(1-9), Noordwijk.
Précédent

- 287/352

Suivant