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ESA BIOMASS satellite with deployable P-band radar for forest monitoring

ESA BIOMASS Mission: 2026 Data Revolution for Carbon Tracking

•4 min read
'Satellites''Remote Sensing''Carbon Markets'

ESA's BIOMASS satellite launched on April 29, 2025 aboard a Vega-C rocket and enters 2026 as a fully commissioned mission with open data. It is the first satellite to carry a P-band synthetic aperture radar, built to look through dense forest canopies and improve estimates of woody biomass and stored carbon.

Why BIOMASS Matters

  • Forest carbon focus: ESA designed the mission to deliver the first global, repeat systematic estimates of forest biomass and height.
  • Deeper canopy penetration: The P-band signal can penetrate dense forest canopies and capture the woody parts of trees where most carbon is stored.
  • Repeat coverage: ESA says the mission is moving through an 18-month tomographic global coverage phase, followed by repeat nine-month global coverages for change monitoring.

Mission Timeline and Current Status

  • April 29, 2025: BIOMASS launched on Vega-C into a 666 km Sun-synchronous orbit.
  • Early May 2025: ESA confirmed the satellite's 12-metre antenna was fully deployed.
  • June 2025: ESA released the first mission images while the satellite was still in commissioning.
  • November 20, 2025: The mission completed its final in-orbit commissioning acquisition.
  • November 21, 2025: BIOMASS transitioned to its Phase E2 tomographic phase.
  • Now: ESA says BIOMASS is fully commissioned, in scientific operations, and its data are open to all.

What the Data Will Deliver

  • Hectare-scale mapping: ESA's mission overview describes 200 m forest biomass and forest-height products at hectare scale.
  • Global revisit cadence: ESA's operations page says the acquisition plan takes 228 days to cover the globe.
  • Tomographic forest structure: The first year of operations focuses on seven-image tomographic stacks to reveal 3D forest structure.
  • Calibration support: ESA paired the mission with an airborne radar campaign over Gabon to assess calibration accuracy and validate performance.

How to Prepare Your Projects

  • Track the current phase: Treat 2026 as the start of BIOMASS scientific operations, with tomographic products arriving before the repeating nine-month coverage cycles.
  • Review data access now: ESA says the mission's data are open, so teams can start testing where BIOMASS fits in carbon-accounting and forest-monitoring workflows.
  • Use it as a structural layer: BIOMASS is strongest where canopy-penetrating radar adds information that optical imagery cannot capture on its own.

Downstream Impacts

  • Carbon accounting: ESA built the mission to reduce uncertainty in estimates of forest carbon stocks and fluxes.
  • Policy and inventories: ESA explicitly positions BIOMASS as support for understanding deforestation, regrowth, and land-use-change impacts on the carbon cycle.
  • Monitoring workflows: For project teams, the near-term value is a new official dataset designed around forest structure rather than canopy surface alone.

Operational Considerations

Geographic limitations: ESA's Earth Online documentation says BIOMASS cannot operate within line-of-sight of the US Department of Defense's Space Object Tracking Radar, which mainly excludes significant portions of North America and Europe.

Mission duration: ESA lists BIOMASS as a mission with a minimum life of 5.5 years, and Earth Online describes it as a planned five-year mission.

2026 Outlook

The BIOMASS mission has moved beyond launch headlines and into scientific operations. For 2026, the practical takeaway is straightforward: the mission is commissioned, the first data are open, and ESA's acquisition plan now gives carbon and forestry teams a real schedule to watch as tomographic coverage matures into repeat global monitoring.

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