ESA Seeks Major Earth Observation Funding

摘要

The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to ask its shareholder governments in December to approve a decade-long investment in Earth observation programs for commercial and research purposes in what might end up being ESA's only assured area of long-term growth. ESA managers say the agency's 17 member governments have signaled their tentative approval of the plan, which would start by providing a gapfiller satellite to replace the Envisat and ERS radar spacecraft around 2010 and continue with a series of Explorer missions and support for near-commercial satellites planned by France, Germany and Italy.