ESA Earth Explorer 13
European Space Agency Earth Explorer 13 is a forthcoming mission opportunity within ESA’s Earth Explorer programme — a series of competitively selected satellites targeting specific Earth-system science questions.
christopher-kyba is principal investigator on a proposal for an Earth Explorer 13 mission dedicated to nighttime artificial-light measurements at higher spatial resolution and lower detection threshold than the current VIIRS DNB capability (src-terrestrial-technosignatures-satellites-2026-04). No European satellite is currently dedicated to nighttime-lights science.
The proposal motivates the mission as serving three intersecting goals: ecological-impact monitoring of light-pollution, energy-policy tracking of nighttime-light-emissions, and astrobiological calibration of terrestrial-technosignature models for seti and exoplanet direct-imaging.
Status as of May 2026: under selection.