ICHEC Enhances ESA’s EarthCARE Mission with Cutting-Edge Computational Support

The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched its EarthCARE satellite last month, marking a significant milestone in atmospheric research. This launch is part of ESA's most ambitious Earth Explorer mission to date, designed to enhance our understanding of clouds and aerosols and their interactions within the Earth's atmosphere.

This project is a collaborative effort with ICHEC, Skytek and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU)

The ESA EO Validation Data Centre (EVDC), created and maintained by Skytek, an Irish SME, is an important component of the EarthCARE mission. Its main function is to calibrate and validate measurements from ESA Earth Observation satellites. 

ICHEC plays a crucial role by providing the computer power to process and compare satellite measurements with ground-based data to ensure accuracy and reliability. Additionally, ICHEC manages the archive of satellite products for multiple satellites, securely storing data for future research. 

NILU contributes by collecting ground-based measurements from global researchers and translating them into formats suitable for validation. The processed and validated data is then handled on ICHEC's high-performance computing system. 

Dr. Jean-Christophe Desplat, Director of ICHEC, highlighted the importance of this mission: “EarthCARE represents a significant leap forward in our ability to monitor and understand atmospheric processes. ICHEC is proud to contribute our expertise in high-performance computing to this ground breaking mission, which will provide invaluable data for climate research and policy development.”