ABSTRACT
Abstract The European Space Agency's first remote sensing mission, ERS-1, is scheduled for launch in mid-1991. Using an imaging radar, a radar altimeter, and an imaging infrared radiometer (the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer or ATSR), it will provide coverage of the Earth's surface between +82° latitude with a variety of repeat periods ranging from 3 to 176 days. Its main goals are the observation of the ocean and sea ice. However, ERS-1 will achieve a major advance in the availability of all-weather, day/night radar imagery of land and ice, which will support a wide variety of scientific and commercial applications. Similarly, the radar altimeter and ATSR, although designed for observations of the ocean, will also make valuable contributions to studies of land and ice. The mission is pre-operational, but it and its successor, ERS-2, will lay the foundation for the routine monitoring of the environment into the 21st century by the polar platforms. The establishment of uninterrupted, self-consistent, global data sets is the key to detecting and understanding climatic change.
