28/07/2025
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The MicroCarb mission, led by the French space agency CNES, will monitor carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to help identify the world’s main sources and sinks of this important greenhouse gas. Launched on 25 July on a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, the mission benefitted from the In-Orbit Demonstration and Validation (IOD/IOV) programme managed by the European Space Agency (ESA) on behalf of the European Commission.
Where is most of our planet’s carbon dioxide generated and where is it absorbed again? CNES’s MicroCarb mission will answer these questions by mapping the world’s main carbon dioxide sources and sinks, helping scientists understand how the greenhouse gas contributes to global climate change.
MicroCarb carries an infrared spectrometer, a scientific instrument that will calculate the proportion of carbon dioxide in the air underneath it by analysing the sunlight reflected by the surface of the Earth and the oceans.
Patrice Kerhousse, ESA’s manager for the IOD/IOV programme, explains: “As the instrument measures carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, it will be generating large amounts of data, which will be transmitted to the ground stations through the satellite’s communication system.
“Receiving this data on Earth will be a Product Data Processing unit (PDP) – a system with enough power to process the large amounts of data to extract accurate carbon dioxide measurements and make them ready and accessible to the science community.”
ESA’s role in the MicroCarb mission is two-fold: the agency coordinated and procured the launch service on the Vega-C rocket, as well as supported the preparation of MicroCarb’s PDP and its integration in the ground segment. Both the launch and the PDP integration were carried out under the European Commission’s In-Orbit Demonstration and Validation (IOD/IOV) programme.
“To ensure Europe’s technological independence and competitiveness, a set of activities providing IOD/IOV services was introduced by the European Commission, and its management was entrusted to ESA,” Patrice comments.
The IOD/IOV programme provides more than just launch opportunities to test new technologies in space. Its scope also includes preparations of a spacecraft’s ground segment – the facilities and instruments that allow mission operators to manage a spacecraft from the ground.
MicroCarb’s PDP unit is an essential part of the mission’s ground segment. Located in Darmstadt, Germany, it was developed and will be operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat) for CNES.
MicroCarb serves as a precursor mission for the European Union’s Copernicus Greenhouse Gas Monitoring and Verification Support. In the future, the Copernicus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Monitoring (CO2M) satellite constellation will provide greenhouse gas monitoring for this service.
The MicroCarb mission is led by CNES, and the spectrometer instrument onboard was built by Airbus in France. The satellite was assembled by Thales Alenia Space UK through a partnership with the UK Space Agency. The Vega-C flight was operated by Arianespace.