Earth Watch

Climate Change Initiative + (CCI+)

ESA and its Member States have an impressive archive of satellite data built up over more than 30 years. The extremely valuable data records enables ESA to make a significant contribution to climate change research with the determination of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) defined by the United Nations.
More information...

Incubed +

The aim of the programme is to support commercial EO developments in order to minimise risks in the rapidly evolving marketplace. With a fast co-financing mechanism, the programme focuses on the development of prototypes of space, ground and user segments, or combinations or elements thereof.
More information...

PROBA-V exploitation

This programme element comprises the operations of the PROBA-V satellite and the smaller companion satellites (to be launched at a later date). The production and archiving of the different VEGETATION products, also fall under this programme element, which is mainly financed by Belgium. The Belgian national CvB programme also contributes to the production and archiving of the PROBA-V data.
The programme element has 2 major phases:

• Operational phase:
  After the launch in may 2013 till July 2020, PROBA-V provided data every 2 days on the state of the vegetation worldwide. The satellite data was/are essential as input for the services of Copernicus and therefore the mission was recognised as a Copernicus Contributing Mission.
  With this operational phase, the PROBA-V mission continued the role of the former SPOT VEGETATION missions. Now it is finally up to the Sentinel 3 mission to guarantee the continuity of this type of observations in the future.
• Experimental phase:
  Due to the orbital drift of the satellite , it is no longer possible to continue the operational role of PROBA-V. It was therefore decided to move to the experimental phase as from 1 July 2020 onwards. An important part of this phase is the joint operations of the PROBA-V satellite with the smaller companion satellites which are under development in the programme GSTP. A first small companion mission will have the same sensor on board as PROBA-V. The data from both missions will be merged.

ALTIUS

The ALTIUS programme element contains the development, construction, launch and operation of a satellite mission based on a PROBA-platform which will monitor the distribution and evolution of stratospheric ozone. This programme element is predominantly funded by Belgium but also other participating countries are involved: Canada, Luxembourg and Romania.

The data will contribute to operational services of ECMWF and EUMETSAT as well as those of Copernicus. In addition to this operational task, it is also intended to carry out scientific observations. The launch is scheduled for 2024.
More information...

Global Development Assistance (GDA)

This programme element is part of "Space in support of International Development Aid", a joint, coordinated initiative of ESA, the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The overarching objective of this joint initiative is to improve the activities of the various stakeholders in development aid through the use of new EO information products and services and user tools.
The initiative comprises three main activities:

• Knowledge development
• Capacity building
• Transfer of skills

The first type of activity falls under the responsibility of ESA and is financed by the GDA programme. The last 2 activities fall under the responsibility of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs): the WB and the ADB. These activities will be financed by the Trust Funds specifically set up for this initiative.