European Remote-Sensing Satellite Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

European Remote-Sensing satellite (ERS) was the European Space Agency's first Earth-observing satellite. It was launched on July 17, 1991 into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at a height of 782-785km.

ERS-1 carried an array of earth-observation instruments that gathered information about the Earth (land, water, ice and atmosphere) using a variety of measurement principles. These included :

• A nadir pointing Radar Altimeter operating in the Ku band
• A Four channel Infrared Radiometer for measuring temperatures at the sea-surface and the top of clouds.
• A Microwave Sounder
• A Synthetic aperture radar
• A Wind Scatterometer

For determining the orbit accurately it included onboard the PRARE (Precision Range and Range-Rate Equipment) and a Laser Retroreflector. The PRARE was non-operational since launch. The Retroreflector was used for calibrating the Radar Altimeter to within 10cm.

ERS-1 failed in March 102000, far exceeding its original lifespan.

The successor ERS-2 was launched on April 21, 1995 it is largely identical to ERS-1 with the addition of the GOME (Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment) and absorption spectrometer. It has been operating without gyroscopes since February 2001 with some degrading of the data provided by the instruments. The tape drive aboard failed on 22 June 2003 leaving some of the instruments operating only within visibility of a ground station.

The successor to ERS-2 is Envisat

External links

• ERS-homepage at ESA

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