Airbus has been awarded a climate change space contract to prepare a mission to collect the first ever absolute measurements of the light reflected off Earth’s surface.

The contract is backed by the UK Government and awarded as part of the European Space Agency’s TRUTHS satellite mission, which will improve our ability to track and predict climate change from Earth Observation data.

It will allow climate scientists to better compare and calibrate data from other satellites while making climate change superforecasts possible.

Earth observation satellites collect hundreds of terabytes of data per day, delivering vital intelligence about how fast glaciers flow, the size of forest fires in the Amazon, and the quality of the air that we breathe.

Measurements from these satellites will arm policy makers, governments and industry with the best quality data and knowledge needed to track and better understand the impacts of climate change.

The TRUTHS mission was originally conceived by the UK, through the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to act as the first ever ‘climate and calibration laboratory in space.’

TRUTHS will carry a Cryogenic Solar Absolute Radiometer (CSAR) to provide a primary calibration standard in order to benchmark measurements of both incoming solar radiation and outgoing reflected radiation with unprecedented accuracy.

The TRUTHS study and pre-developments will include partners from the UK space industry including Teledyne e2v UK, NPL, RAL, University of Leicester, Thales Alenia Space UK, CGI IT UK, Telespazio-UK and Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station as well as contributions from companies and institutes from the participating nations: The Czech Republic, Greece, Romania and Switzerland. The overall contract is worth approximately €16 million.