Photo credit  |  ESA/NASA

MicroCarb Satellite

Missions  |  18 February, 2020

Ground-breaking French-UK climate change satellite mission showcases the UK’s world-leading carbon Earth observation capability.

UPDATED February 7th, 2024

The MicroCarb satellite – a joint UK Space Agency and French space agency CNES climate mission – is completed ready for launch and has journeyed to France.

After spending a year undergoing assembly and integration processes, followed by rigorous testing in the RAL Space clean room MicroCarb will be stored at Thales Alenia Space’s facility in Toulouse ready to be assigned a launch date, currently due to be in 2025.

The UK Space Agency has invested £13.9m in the joint climate satellite mission, in which the UK is partnering with CNES – the French Space Agency.

MicroCarb will be the first European satellite designed to measure carbon fluxes on Earth by precisely measuring carbon dioxide (CO2) from all around the world – the main greenhouse gas caused by human activity.

The image below shows MicroCarb being delivered from France to the UK in a specialist container in December 2022.

Loaded into a special container on the back of a lorry, MicroCarb arrives at Harwell Space Cluster from France: Image credit Thales Alenia Space
Image credit: Thales Alenia Space

The data it sends back to climate scientists will play in an important role in global efforts to measure how much carbon is being emitted on Earth by natural processes and how much by human activities.

The instrument was built by Airbus France, with pre-flight calibration and validation conducted by Space4Climate members the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, before being shipped to the UK in December 2022, where Thales Alenia Space completed the satellite assembly, integration and testing at RAL Space.
Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said: “Having more accurate knowledge of how much carbon the world’s forests and oceans absorb will provide the reliable information needed to take decisions on tackling climate change.”

Mission facts

  • MicroCarb will be the first European satellite dedicated to measuring Carbon Dioxide (CO2) – the main greenhouse gas (GHG) caused by human activity and a key contributor to climate change
  • The UK is partnering with France’s space agency, the Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES, the French space agency) to deliver the mission
  • MicroCarb will monitor Earth’s atmospheric CO2 from space with extreme precision and detect the changes associated with surface emissions and uptake across the world from our cities and forests to our oceans
  • MicroCarb has a special city-scanning observing mode that will allow us, for the first time, to map CO2 emissions across cities which are a large contributor to global emissions
  • Data from MicroCarb will help us to monitor international progress in meeting the Paris Agreement climate target of limiting global surface warming to well below 2ºC of pre-industrial temperatures
  • The satellite is due for launch in 2023–24
  • MicroCarb will become part of the international GHG virtual constellation of satellites.

What are the benefits?

  • The mission is increasing capacity in the UK space sector to design and build complex space instruments and technologically advanced satellites
  • Measuring how much carbon the world’s forests and oceans absorb will help scientists to understand and exploit the natural processes that absorb CO2 and it will inform forecasts of the impact of our changing climate on those carbon sinks, for instance, in the preparation of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
  • MicroCarb’s data will contribute to global efforts to measure how much carbon is being emitted by natural processes and how much by human activities (anthropogenic climate change)
  • Having more accurate knowledge of the carbon cycle and emissions of carbon will give policymakers the most reliable information to take decisions on tackling climate change.

Applications

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the principal greenhouse gas driving global warming. Our changing climate is affecting the balance of the amount of CO2 emitted by natural and human activities around the world and the amount of CO2 absorbed by our natural environment.

Accurately measuring and monitoring carbon emissions and absorption is vital in being able to manage and to limit climate change and is a key focus of COP each year – the United Nations climate change conference.

The MicroCarb satellite will carry an instrument that measures finely-resolved absorption bands of CO2 in reflected sunlight. Once in orbit MicroCarb will deliver some of the most precise atmospheric CO2 measurements to date, In particular, MicroCarb includes a purpose-built city-scanning observing mode that will map gradients of CO2 across cities at a fine spatial resolution of 2 x 2km2.

Data from MicroCarb will help to monitor how well Paris Agreement carbon targets are being met. It will also, for example, alert scientists when ecosystems alter their ability to absorb carbon.

Its highly detailed and accurate measurements can facilitate effective management and will inform policy decisions for governments around the world, scientific research and space-enabled technology for climate services.

UK expertise

MicroCarb puts the UK at the heart of a major European space mission and strengthens our position in space-based carbon monitoring. UK organisations and scientists are making crucial contributions from satellite payload to quality assurance and analysis of the data – more information in the UK Partners section.

Thales Alenia Space undertook the Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT) at RAL Space’s clean room facilities at Harwell, Oxfordshire.

Experts at NPL are providing critical pre-launch and onboard calibration hardware. This calibration is key to the success of the mission and the value of the scientific exploitation of climate data the satellite will send back.

Devising and launching the satellite represents just a segment in the supply chain required from sensor to data products that can be used to inform decisions.

Staff at GMV UK are responsible for designing, implementing and quality assuring the algorithms and operational processors for a number of the carbon dioxide data products. The operational processors convert the raw science data generated by the sensing instrument on the satellite into values that can then be used to form climate datasets.

GMV UK are also responsible for ensuring the operational processors for this mission can integrate with the processing infrastructure of mission partner, the French Space Agency (CNES) as well as with those of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

Drawing on world-leading expertise at the universities of Leicester and Edinburgh, the MicroCarb team will translate atmospheric CO2 observation into maps that show carbon emissions and uptake (carbon sources and sinks). The work will fundamentally improve current understanding of the carbon cycle and help pave the way towards a measurement verification system to monitor carbon emissions from human activities and natural processes.

Insights

Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency:

“Over half of the critical measurements on climate change rely on satellite data and the information from MicroCarb will be hugely important. Having more accurate knowledge of how much carbon the world’s forests and oceans absorb will provide the reliable information needed to take decisions on tackling climate change.

“This mission shows what can be achieved when we collaborate with international partners like CNES, bringing the best of our skills and expertise together.”

Dr Sarah Beardsley, Director of STFC RAL Space:

“Achieving Net Zero is one of the most pressing challenges we currently face, and a vital part in reaching our collective goal is to develop systems that can accurately and reliably monitor carbon emissions.

“I’m incredibly proud that STFC RAL Space has played such an important role in the development of MicroCarb.

“The pointing and calibration system that we’ve developed for this mission will enable scientists to analyse the carbon cycle in new levels of fine detail, giving us a fuller and clearer understanding of the processes driving climate change.”