BIOMASS, the third launched satellite mission designed at CESBIO !

After SMOS in 2009, and VENµS in 2017, the CESBIO laboratory is very proud to see its third proposed mission, Biomass, reach orbit.

As always, it has been a long journey from the idea, at the beginning of the century, to the selection in 2013 as the seventh Earth Explorer Mission by ESA, to the launch on April 29th, 2025 on a VEGA-C launcher from Kourou.

This fantastic mission exists thanks to one of the pioneers of SAR observations, Thuy Le Toan, who dedicated the last part of her career, and something like 15 years after her retirement, to this mission. And yet she was there, yesterday, in Kourou, explaining all the benefits she expects from the mission with the enthousiasm of a young researcher (that she still is).

Thuy of course did not do this work alone, and a whole familly of PhD students, postdocs, engineers and researchers at CESBIO, CNES, in many European countries, at ESA and within the industry (including Globeo, hosted at CESBIO, Stephane Mermoz and Juan Doblas), were involved in the design and optimisation of the mission, processors and products. At CESBIO, the permanent team involves (in alphabetical order) Alexandre Bouvet, Laurent Ferro-Famil, Thierry Koleck, Milena Planells, Ludovic Villard, as well as a few PhD students, and… Thuy Le Toan, of course.

I won’t come back to the interest of the mission, Thuy and Alexandre described it perfectly in a recent paper in « the conversation » (In French, but there are good translation tools in your browser). Let’s say that if everything goes as planned (including the deployment of the large umbrella antenna), our colleagues have very happy years ahead to discover the power of this completely new observation tool. Have fun !

And finally, regarding Thuy, I have no doubt it won’t be long before she thinks about the next generation advanced Biomass-2 mission !