Nebula Public Library

In recent years the need for accessing historical Earth Observation data information has greatly increased, driven by long term scientific and environmental monitoring. The need to preserve such data indefinitely has led to the establishment of the Long-Term Data Preservation (LTDP) guidelines for Earth Observation. However to make full use of this data, it is necessary to have sufficient quality information available to be assured about the data quality.

The objective of the APPS study has been to investigate the feasibility, architectural and system design, and potential performance of a non-nuclear system whose single goal is to provide survival and servicing support to a planetary payload element, in order to ensure its operations despite the absence of sunlight for extended periods. The principle aim is to advance concepts and overall approaches to meet this goal, and to provide a framework for the future development of key technologies.

While most Earth Observation missions based on passive optical methods are intended to measure the light “reflected” by the surface, FLEX uses a completely innovative approach based on the measurement of the light “emitted” as fluorescence by terrestrial vegetation. Such fluorescence emission by vegetation has never been measured from space, which makes FLEX a true Explorer mission providing a type of information never available before.