The European Space Technology Master Plan
The European Space Technology Master Plan (ESTMP) is a unique one-stop-shop of information on space technology in Europe, covering ESA, national and other European institutionally funded programmes and activities. For over two decades, ESA has been conducting a Harmonisation of European space technology and preparing the annually published ESTMP together with key stakeholders, including ESA Member States, ESA Associate Members and European Cooperating States. Since 2017, the ESTMP has been jointly published with the European Commission.
Based on the content of the ESTMP, the presentation will provide a brief overview of the European technology landscape, including ESA and national programmes and activities. Some excerpts of relevance to Earth Observation developments in Europe will also be presented.
The presentation will complement other presentations within the session by providing:
- the overall context for European space technology
- the European landscape of institutional programmes funding space technology
- A high-level overview of ESA technology programmes
- A summary of national programmes included in the ESTMP
- The role of the Technology Harmonisation process
- Some excerpts of particular relevance for Earth Observation

Societal challenges like climate change and adaptation, digitalisation, mobility, renewable energy, sustainability and civil security are the main topics for the German Earth Observation Programme. As the largest contributor to the European Earth Observation Programmes at ESA, Eumetsat and EC, Germany is shaping together with our international partners a user-driven, well-balanced, technological outstanding and long-term EO landscape for Earth science, operational services and downstream business. The German National EO Programme complements the European activities in terms of data exploitation, service development, technology preparation and mission development and operations. In order to prepare new missions, this programme is continuously funding the development of crucial EO instrument technologies. Examples from predevelopments for German radar, optical and Lidar missions will be presented.

CNES, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, is the French space agency, responsible for shaping and implementing France’s space Policy at National, European and International levels.
Among its five key domains (launchers, science, Earth observation, telecommunications and defence), Earth Observation programme is a fundamental pillar which covers a full scope of activities: from science and technology needs and priorities to the development of applications and services, with a strong activities in infrastructure and data management
Earth observation is becoming increasingly precise and involves major challenges for the future: advancing our understanding of the functioning of the Earth system, in particular the water, energy and carbon cycles, understanding and assessing climate change and its effects, and the impact of humans on the Environment. This research and the development of new space missions contribute to satisfying major societal needs for up-to-date and qualified environmental information. CNES is working to develop and to renew the space infrastructure needed for continuous innovation to address those needs and on the other hand support new actors to develop the market with Connect By CNES initiative.
In this session, we will present the Earth Observation program in its various aspects, "science and climate" drivers, current satellite missions and associated activities, international partnerships and initiatives, downstream applications development especially within the New Space context, as well as perspectives for the future.
We will put a strong emphasis on innovative technological developments and achievements in key areas, some already operational in current missions, others being planned and/or developed in the frame of future innovative EO missions.

The Italian Space Agency is preparing the future of Earth Observation through a range of activities and programs, which work together for efficient results covering short- to medium-terms activities as well as others which will not be completed until farther into the future. These programs are all defined in strong connection with industry, research partners and user gathering inputs and needs through national workshops, regular bilateral meetings and open call for ideas.
The main drivers are enable new measurements and on board functionalities, but also facilitating on ground information retrieval and sharing,
In this paper we will focus mainly on earth observation instruments to provide some examples of new developments under the “new earth observation payloads and missions program”. The program, running since 2015, covers a wide range of instruments (optical, microwave, quantum) addressing both large complex instruments and small for constellations of small satellites.
Regarding microwaves, one line of activity concerns the development of a low frequency wideband radiometer in the range 0,4-2,0 Ghz for remote sensing of the cryosphere. The innovation is related to extend the frequency spectrum for radiometry below L-band and fully relies to the capability to detect and filter RFI on board, which is also a new approach. An instrument prototype for airborne campaign is under development. Still considering the microwave part of the spectrum, ASI is working on deploying the first X-band SAR in a GEO orbit that would make a highly innovative contribution to EO capabilities in meteorology, geophysical processes, infrastructure monitoring thanks to the temporal frequency of the measurements. Another observation concept is based on a distributed low frequency (40-50 MHz) radar sounder flying in formation with small recurrent platform providing subsurface measurements of ice masses and arid areas. Low frequency sounding radars have flown in space around planetary bodies but never around Earth. The challenges are mainly related to autonomous control of large constellation flying in close formation and to a large syntethic antenna in a distributed architecture.
Activities are also ongoing on multi-frequency transmitters and receivers operating in the Ka band for the observation of tropospheric water vapour, based on an active differential measurement technique (NDSA: Normalized Differential Spectral Attenuation) and on a train of co-rotating LEO satellites. An experimental campaign is on going on ground.
Coming to optical range of the spectrum, preliminary studies are on going on a payload operating in the medium infrared, based on super-resolution and compressive sensing technique with the aim to improve ground spatial resolution and mitigate saturation/blooming effects. The core of the payload is a Spatial Light Modulator (SLM): a bidimensional array of micro-mirrors electronically actuated. Thanks to compressive sensing approach, the proposed payload eliminates the compression board, saving mass, memory and energy consumption. Compressive sensing approach is applied also in the ASI project dedicated to evaluate the spatial distribution and the effect of impurities of the snow apparent thermal inertia (API) as indicator of snowmelt processes on fragmented landscapes. To this end the project foreseen the study of a VIS-TIR payload based on multiwave and qDIP detector.
LIDAR are also on the payload roadmap of the Italian Space Agency, on the basis of the heritage acquired with Aeolus and Earthcare mission. Technological developments are on going on high-power lasers including diodes, efficiency and optical coating.
To look forward in the future, a new type of sensor based on quantum technology, is expected to improve significantly the gravity measurements, leading to better Earth monitoring and enhanced or new EO services. The quantum payalod currently under study at ASI is based on the integration of two different technologies: an "enhanced" CAI instrument consisting of a gravitational interferometry gradiometer with ultra-cold atoms, on which an optical frequency measurement using an ultra-stable laser is implemented, which also provides time measurements. This would lead to an improvement of the gravity model even at low harmonic degrees and its temporal variations, with advantages in the modeling of mass transport and its global variations.

The first ever United Kingdom (UK) National Space Strategy was published in 2021 and sets out the government’s ambitions for the UK in space, bringing together civil and defence space policy for the first time. Earth Observation (EO) applications and services are identified as a high growth area, highlighting EO data as a priority to tackle climate change challenges.

UK Space Agency has a strong heritage of collaboratively supporting programmes across science, technology and industry. The UK Government supports a number of technology programmes in EO development, including but not limited to the UK Space Agency funded Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation (CEOI), a consortium led by Airbus Defence and Space in partnership with QinetiQ, University of Leicester and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council).

Since 2007, the CEOI has sought to maintain and grow UK capability in EO instrumentation. The CEOI oversees a grant programme which, with parallel investment from industry, funds novel EO instrumentation projects to raise Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) to a level that can contribute to major EO missions. Since 2007, CEOI funding has assisted UK EO technologies to be part of at least 17 mission opportunities across the European Space Agency (ESA), Copernicus, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and commercial programmes.

Some highlights include:
• Two funded technologies are the basis of ESA Scout missions CubeMap and HydroGNSS
• An on-board calibration system (the Cryogenic Solar Absolute Radiometer - CSAR) that will fly on the TRUTHS high precision climate mission, now in advanced study in ESA
• The mission concepts SEASTAR (oceanography) and WIVERN (wind and rain) are two of the four Earth Explorer 11 candidates selected for Phase 0 study
• Three commercial instruments for maritime surveillance, high-resolution imaging and video, and thermal imaging, are either flying or are at an advanced build stage

In addition to funding instrumentation development, the CEOI runs a range of community building activities to promote close working relationships and knowledge transfer between academia and industry. This includes holding events such as an annual national EO conference; providing advice and guidance to projects teams on technology development and commercialisation; and supporting UK companies to make the best case possible when pursuing a role in EO missions.

The UK Space Agency has also recently established the National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP) to support the development of innovative space projects. It supports projects that may be high risk but have the potential for high returns and a clear target market. Launched in 2020, the programme has so far run two funding opportunities for project teams to advance products, services and technologies that have application in the space sector. In its first year, 27 projects received grants, which were awarded to both industry and academia led project teams across the UK. Several of these projects are focused on developing EO technology, including the development of a novel High Resolution Infrared Sensor payload for heat detection (Global Satellite Vu).

NSIP EO projects include:
• TreeView: Precision Forestry to Tackle Climate Change (The Open University)
• High resolution thermal infrared space telescopes for globally monitoring the energy efficiency of buildings (University of Cambridge)
• Global Lidar Altimetry MISsion: GLAMIS (University of Edinburgh)
• Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder Constellation of Nanosatellites for Climate change And Mitigation (STFC RAL Space)
• GHGWatch (Geospatial Insight)

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Space scientists contribute to and underpin UK EO and international programmes in environmental science through the provision of research expertise, services and facilities in support of the UK science community. RAL Space develop enabling technologies of the future and are delivering missions such as ESA Earth Explorer candidate mission LOCUS Supra-THz mission of Upper Atmosphere, BAROmetric Differential Absorption Radar (BARODAR) mission for surface Air-Pressure measurement from space, and Hyperspectral Microwave Sounders (HYMS).

RAL Enabling Technologies include:
• Schottky diode mixer development a critical technology for heterodyne microwave radiometers, from microwaves up to supra-THz frequencies
• Development of a new generation of closed cycle, miniature space coolers for detectors and sources. These coolers can lower the operating temperatures of heterodyne mixers in EO instruments, which reduces the receiver noise contribution and, in doing so, increases the instrument sensitivity
• Novel techniques to integrate microwave radiometers for EO application. This new technology opens the way for microwave remote sensing from New Space platforms (CubeSats and SmallSats)
• 200 GHz cloud radar (GRaCE) is a ground-based millimetre wave radar built as a technology demonstrator and to establish the scientific benefits of a future space radar
• Mid InfraRed hollow waveguide integration technological developments aim to enable new science in the field of atmospheric studies, EO and astronomy, through new instrumental capabilities, both ground-based and space-based (e.g., in the ESA Scout mission CubeMAP)
• Cold Atoms and Quantum Sensors research and development of the next generation sensors based on the quantum properties of ultra-cold atomic gases

This highlights some of the UK’s EO technology development programmes ensuring the long-term, resilient supply of data and skills needed for economic growth, climate change and science discovery.

Within the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) is leading the effort in developing new, CubeSat- and SmallSat-class instruments, instrument technologies and information systems technologies for Earth observations. ESTO has been on forefront of the technology development and validation, through Advanced Component Technology (ACT), Instrument Incubator Program (IIP), Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST), In-Space Validation of Earth Science Technology program (InVEST), and the Sustainable Land Imaging Technology program (SLI-T). With these programs ESTO has been able to cover the full technology development cycle, from concept to airborne and space flight demonstration and ultimately infusions into missions. Over time, ESTO investment in emerging technologies have enabled new mission architectures, rapid development, and lower costs leading to unique observation capabilities for new science investigations. For example two space demonstrations of a radar and a radiometer observing the structure of hurricanes near simultaneously enables future missions with simultaneous active, passive observations such as with the EVM-3 INCUS mission.

This talk will cover some of these efforts through the full cycle from technology development to missions.