BIOMASS

BIOMASS is ESA's seventh Earth Explorer mission (EE-7), a single-satellite P-band synthetic aperture radar mission launched on 29 April 2025 aboard a Vega-C rocket from Kourou, French Guiana [^esa-facts]. The satellite completed its post-launch commissioning phase on 20 November 2025, entering routine Tomographic operations on 21 November 2025 [^esa-eogateway].

The sole imaging payload is the P-SAR instrument: a fully polarimetric SAR operating at 435 MHz (P-band, approximately 69 cm wavelength) with a 12-metre deployable mesh reflector built by Harris Corporation [^eoportal-biomass]. The instrument acquires HH, VV, HV, and VH polarisation channels simultaneously, with a swath of approximately 50 km at incidence angles between 23 and 35 degrees and spatial resolution of approximately 60 m range by 50 m azimuth [^eoportal-biomass]. P-band wavelength penetrates forest canopy layers to reach the woody trunk and branch structure where most above-ground biomass mass resides, giving the mission sensitivity to forest carbon stocks that shorter-wavelength radars cannot match [^esa-facts].

The mission operates in two sequential phases. The Tomographic phase (approximately 12 months from November 2025) collects stacks of seven repeat-pass images per location, enabling experimental three-dimensional mapping of vertical forest structure via SAR tomography. The following Interferometric phase (approximately 4.5 years) collects three-image stacks using PolInSAR techniques to derive forest height and above-ground biomass at 200 m resolution globally on an annual basis [^esa-eogateway].

Geographic coverage spans 56 degrees south to 75 degrees north latitude. Operational coverage excludes North America and Europe due to coordination constraints with US Department of Defence Space Object Tracking Radar systems [^esa-eogateway]. Primary target biomes are the Amazon Basin, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asian tropical forests, plus boreal zones.

Level-1 calibrated SAR products (SLC and GRD in full polarimetry) became openly available on 26 January 2026 [^esa-main]. Level-2 products including above-ground biomass maps, forest height, and disturbance detection layers are on a phased release schedule through 2027.

BIOMASS was developed for ESA by an industrial consortium led by Airbus Defence and Space UK, with Thales Alenia Space contributing the feed array system and L3Harris Technologies providing antenna testing [^eoportal-biomass]. Mission control operates from ESA's ESOC in Darmstadt; science data processing is handled at ESA's ESRIN in Frascati, Italy.