ESA has awarded a development contract to the UK arm of Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus DS) to create key technologies to allow the TRUTHS (Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial- and Helio-Studies) satellite mission to measure solar radiation and the Earth’s own albedo radiation reflection as part of the effort to understand global warming and climate change.
Artist’s illustration of TRUTHS spacecraft. Courtesy: ESA
ESA is building this new satellite under the umbrella of its Earth Watch programme on behalf of the UK and other five ESA Member States, Switzerland, Czechia, Spain, Greece and Romania. It will provide traceable International System of Units (SI) measurements of incoming solar radiation and of radiation reflected from Earth back out into space, with which to calibrate data from other satellites and to provide high-accuracy Earth’s radiation data to climate modelling scientists. In effect, the readings taken by the TRUTHS spacecraft will allow scientist to fillet out the contribution which is due to human greenhouse gas emissions, and the contribution due to what the Sun is doing.
