ESA’s New Mission on Space-Based Data Provider to Detect Climate Change

ESA has been on the move in developing its TRUTHS mission. Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial-and Helio-Studies, abbreviated as TRUTHS, is an ESA climate mission led by the UK Space Agency to facilitate in-flight calibration of Earth Observation (EO) satellites.

The TRUTHS mission is a breakthrough in detecting climate change occurring on Earth by producing identifiable International System of Units measurements of incoming solar radiation and the reflected one from Earth back into space. In a nutshell, TRUTHS will provide a standard reference of climate derived from space.

More About ESA Climate Mission of TRUTHS

According to ESA, the quantity of incoming solar radiation versus the amount that goes back up into space effectively affects our climate. Accurate comprehension of determining changes in our climate through those radiation exchanges is central. Besides, the decision-making of international policy regarding climate action and climate crisis mitigation requires trusted reference.

TRUTHS comes in assistance. This ESA climate mission will provide the data of radiation measurements tied to international standards that will “improve our understanding of climate change and help increase the precision of climate models,” as stated by ESA.

ESA

The data drawn from the TRUTHS satellite will be used to compare and calibrate data from other earth observation satellites to lessen the uncertainty of the Earth-observing data. Accordingly, TRUTHS will give a more comprehensive source from the standardized data that can contribute to climate adaptation and mitigation strategy decisions.

It is difficult to make decisions with uncertainty, especially this climate issue has a significant impact on our society. Hence, it will require highly-precise resolutions and long-term records to determine a climate change over various weather and climate.

[irp posts=”2401″ name=”An Asteroid as High as the Eiffel Tower Will Hurtle Past Earth”]

Beth Greenaway, Head of EO and Climate at the UK Space Agency, conveyed, “The mission will play a vital role in improving how we monitor climate change using satellite data and support the decisive climate action which global nations are negotiating at COP26.”

The head of the EO Research Mission at ESA, Dominique Gillieron, also uttered that the ESA climate mission via TRUTHS would be a perfect complement to existing Earth-observation missions, giving remarkable radiometric accuracy.

The Current Development of TRUTHS

TRUTHS is now at phase B1, which is the preliminary design stage, after passing through the previous phase, which was the feasibility stage (phase A). The move will bring TRUTHS to the point of mission adoption and selection of industrial contractors to the launch stage around 2029.

“The UK-led TRUTHS mission is making significant progress. As it moves into the detailed design phase, we can now see what it will actually look like,” Greenaway declared. 

TRUTHS is equipped with two primary instruments: the Cryogenic Solar Absolute Radiometer and the Hyperspectral Imaging Spectrometer, as well as an inbuilt calibration mechanism. These instruments will keep updating the measurements of the incoming and reflected radiation, in which the collected data will be assessed to get the ratio of energy-in and energy-out.

“Building on our experience of multiple previous Earth Observation missions, ESA leads the preparation phase of TRUTHS mission towards its final endorsement by end of 2022 at the ESA ministerial conference,” Gillieron noted.

WATCH: ESA and climate change