ESA's low altitude Earth observation system debuted in 1991 with the launch of ERS-1. The culmination of a 10-year
development project led by Germany, ERS-1 hosts a suite of precision instruments tailored for a comprehensive environmental
monitoring program with objectives including:

     * a much more accurate representation of the interactions between ocean and atmosphere in climatic models,
     * a major advance in our knowledge of ocean circulation, its variability and the associated energy transfers,
     * better monitoring of polar regions, in particular the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets and sea-ice-covered areas,
     * a more comprehensive understanding of coastal processes and surface pollution, including erosion, sedimentation,
     coastal currents, estuarine fronts and circulation,
     * the regular monitoring of land-surface processes on a global scale, and in particular the vegetation cover,
     * the monitoring of changing land-use patterns,
     * offering a unique all-weather sensing capability for disaster observation and assessment, and
     * enhancing the data available for operational meteorology, in particular observation ofwinds near the sea surface,
     sea-state, seasurface temperature measurements, cloudfields, atmospheric water content, and seaice distribution"