Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites

Many new remote sensing programs are under way throughout the world, in the U.S., Europe Japan, and elsewhere. NASA's Earth Science Division is developing and implementing a broad range of Earth spaceborne remote sensing missions to answer fundamental scientific questions requiring the view from space and to meet societal needs. These include missions from the National Research Council’s Earth Science Decadal Survey, Climate Continuity missions and selected instruments to assure availability of key data sets, operational missions to ensure sustained land imaging provided by the Landsat system, and small-sized competitively selected orbital missions and instruments belonging to the Earth Venture Program. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is developing and operating the ALOS, GOSAT, GCOM, GPM/DPR, and EarthCare series of programmes. The European Space Agency (ESA) is developing and implementing the METOP, METEOSAT, Copernicus, and Earth Explorer programs. A number of new remote sensing programmes are also under development by other organisations and nations for research and operational use. Many of the above are contributing to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) as envisioned by the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Each of these programs comprises a set of remote sensing systems to address their science and applications objectives.