The european space agency's earth observation satellite programmes

After a short presentation of the Meteosat and Sirio-2 programmes, the paper describes the elements of the ESA Remote Sensing Programmes for polar, Sun-synchronous orbits: Earthnet, a network of ground stations receiving data for present and future American satellites, and future European programmes; Spacelab, whose first flight will include high resolution visible and IR cameras, and radar; ERS-1, for radar observation of oceans and polar caps. Future ESA programmes are outlined.