Caring for the Earth
The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected five new candidate missions for preliminary feasibility studies. The proposed missions all aim to enhance Europe's capacity to predict changes in the Earth's environment, reports ESA. The selected missions are intended to be 'Earth explorer core missions' - large research and demonstration missions led by ESA. They are: - ACE - atmospheric chemistry explorer; - EarthCARE - Earth clouds aerosol and radiation explorer; - SPECTRA - surface processes and ecosystems changes through response analysis; - WALES - water vapour lidar experiment in space; - WATS - water vapour and wind in atmospheric troposphere and stratosphere. These missions will be discussed at a meeting in Granada, Spain, during the week of 29 October 2001. The proposals follow four other studies that were completed in late 1999 and led to the selection of the first two Earth explorer core missions to be implemented. These were the 'gravity field and steady state ocean circulation mission' and the 'atmospheric dynamics mission'.