EarthCARE

Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer

Mission Profile

EarthCARE (Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer) is an ESA and JAXA satellite launched on 28 May 2024 aboard a Falcon 9 Block 5, designed to improve understanding of how clouds and aerosols interact with solar and thermal infrared radiation — the largest source of uncertainty in climate models. Its four instruments — a Doppler cloud profiling radar, an atmospheric lidar, a multispectral imager, and a broadband radiometer — work together to simultaneously characterize cloud vertical structure, aerosol composition, and radiative fluxes at the top of atmosphere. EarthCARE is the largest and most complex ESA Earth Explorer satellite ever launched, representing the culmination of 20 years of atmospheric science mission development. Its measurements will directly constrain climate model parameterizations of cloud-radiation feedback, one of the key uncertainties in projections of future climate change.