Kourou, French Guiana — 29 April 2025
The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched its Biomass satellite on 29 April 2025 at 09:15 UTC from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. A Vega-C rocket carried the 1.2-tonne spacecraft into a Sun-synchronous orbit approximately 600 kilometres above Earth, marking the seventh mission in ESA's Earth Explorer programme and the first spaceborne mission dedicated to measuring forest biomass on a global scale.
The satellite's primary scientific objective is to provide the first comprehensive, global measurements of forest above-ground biomass — the total mass of living woody material in a given area. By accurately mapping the distribution, height, and changes of forests worldwide, the mission aims to significantly reduce current uncertainties in calculations of global carbon stocks and fluxes, data that is critical for understanding the role of forests in the global carbon cycle.
P-Band Radar: Seeing Through the Canopy
What sets Biomass apart from previous Earth observation missions is its P-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument — the first of its kind to be flown in space. Operating at a wavelength of approximately 70 centimetres, the P-band radar can penetrate through dense forest canopies to detect the woody trunks, branches, and stems where the majority of a tree's carbon is stored.
Previous satellite missions using shorter-wavelength radars could only measure the top surface of the canopy, providing limited information about the actual biomass below. Optical satellites, while useful for mapping forest extent, cannot see through clouds or measure the three-dimensional structure of forests. Biomass addresses both limitations: its radar operates day and night in all weather conditions, and its long wavelength reaches the carbon-rich woody components.
A Five-Year Mission for Forest Monitoring
The satellite is designed for a planned operational life of five years, during which it will perform repeat surveys of Earth's forests to track changes over time, including forest loss, degradation, and recovery. The mission will focus on tropical, temperate, and boreal forests, with particular emphasis on tropical regions where deforestation and forest degradation are most acute and where biomass estimates are currently most uncertain.
The data collected will directly support international climate initiatives, particularly REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), which provides financial incentives to developing countries for protecting and sustainably managing their forests. Accurate biomass measurements are essential for verifying emissions reductions reported under REDD+ and for tracking progress toward national climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Mission Context and Scientific Collaboration
Biomass was first proposed to ESA in 2005 and selected as the seventh Earth Explorer mission in 2013, following a rigorous scientific and technical assessment. The mission was developed by a consortium of European aerospace companies led by Airbus Defence and Space, with the P-band radar instrument built by Thales Alenia Space.
The scientific leadership comes from a team headed by Professor Shaun Quegan of the University of Sheffield, who has championed the mission concept for nearly two decades. The Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, plays a key role in the mission's calibration and validation activities, ensuring that satellite measurements can be verified against ground-based forest inventory data.
Why Forest Biomass Matters
Forests absorb approximately 30% of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions each year, acting as a critical buffer against climate change. However, deforestation and forest degradation — particularly in tropical regions — are releasing stored carbon back into the atmosphere, turning some forests from carbon sinks into carbon sources.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has repeatedly highlighted the need for better data on forest carbon stocks to improve national greenhouse gas inventories and to verify the effectiveness of mitigation policies. Current methods rely on a combination of ground-based forest inventories, which are expensive and limited in coverage, and satellite observations that provide indirect estimates of biomass through proxies such as canopy height or vegetation indices.
Biomass will provide direct measurements of forest woody biomass at a global scale, filling a critical gap in the Earth observation system. The mission's data will be freely available to the scientific community and to national forest monitoring agencies, supporting both research and policy applications.
Looking Ahead
Following launch and early orbit operations, the Biomass satellite will undergo a commissioning phase of approximately six months, during which the P-band radar will be calibrated and the first scientific data products will be validated. Routine scientific operations are expected to begin in late 2025, with the first global biomass maps anticipated by 2026.
The mission represents a significant investment in Europe's Earth observation capabilities and complements other forest monitoring initiatives, including the EU's Copernicus programme and Japan's ALOS-4 satellite, which carries a shorter-wavelength L-band radar. Together, these missions will provide a multi-sensor view of the world's forests, enabling scientists to track changes in forest carbon with unprecedented accuracy and frequency.
Sources
- ESA Earth Online, Biomass Mission:
- Arianespace, Biomass Launch Press Release:
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Biomass Launch Announcement:
- CNES, Biomass Project Page:
- ESA Earth Observation Portal, Biomass Mission Description:
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