06/05/2026
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Within the far northern reaches of Finnish Lapland, an formidable new chapter in Earth remark is unfolding. The European House Company, along with the Finnish Meteorological Institute and Finnish industrial companions, is advancing plans to develop a state-of-the-art ‘supersite’ in Sodankylä.
The plan is to equip this distant web site with an array of latest superior environmental measuring applied sciences, together with a hanging high-tech airship carrying sensors to carry out regional surveys.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute’s Arctic Space Centre in Sodankylä lies properly above the Arctic Circle. Nestled inside huge boreal forest, enduring lengthy, chilly winters and a brief rising season, the positioning, and the encircling area, is consultant of the broader boreal forest biome – the world’s largest land-based biome stretching throughout northern Canada, Scandinavia and Russia.
The positioning is due to this fact an excellent pure laboratory to additional develop the function and capabilities of satellite-based Earth remark and sensors to observe, perceive and predict future environmental developments on this space.
Evolving the Finnish Arctic House Centre right into a supersite for Earth remark will ship advantages on a number of fronts.
The set up of latest on-site sensors and regional airborne surveys will deepen our understanding of how boreal forests operate and reply to vary. It can improve the standard of environmental info collected by satellites passing overhead – as an example enabling comparisons between ground-based measurements and satellite-derived observations and maps of the area.
The brand new supersite will open up new alternatives for Finnish corporations to develop and take a look at superior environmental sensing applied sciences, and examine their modern options with reference sensors in place. By bettering the standard of satellite-derived knowledge, the supersite can even pave the best way for brand new providers and purposes tailor-made to the Arctic area.
Constructing on preliminary agreements, a contract signed at ESA’s Dwelling Planet Symposium final yr and a current evaluation, ESA is now continuing with the procurement and set up of the brand new sensing devices on the web site, in addition to implementing airborne sensing campaigns supported by its FutureEO programme.
Head of ESA’s Earth Commentary Campaigns part, Malcolm Davidson, defined, “The brand new supersite will play a elementary function in serving to us additional develop the function and Europe’s capabilities in monitoring the Arctic from house – as an example by upcoming satellite tv for pc missions reminiscent of Copernicus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Monitoring mission and the Copernicus Radar Observing System for Europe at L-band mission – two of the Copernicus Sentinel Enlargement missions.
For the reason that Arctic is sparsely populated and covers a big space, Earth remark satellites are the important thing to mapping and monitoring the distinctive and fragile Arctic area.”
Hannakaisa Lindqvist, who’s main the exercise for Finnish Meteorological Institute, added, “ESA has now agreed to a set of latest devices that will probably be put in on the web site together with a brand new tower-based multifrequency radiometer and modern greenhouse fuel sensors.
“Additionally deliberate are regional surveys utilizing a brand new remotely-controlled airship system that may fly as much as 12 hours which is able to generate the primary 3D map of all vegetation surrounding Sodankylä.”
The SpacEconomy mission, Finland’s strategic analysis initiative to strengthen the nationwide house ecosystem, can be concerned within the supersite. One in every of its key targets is to have interaction corporations that haven’t historically operated within the house sector and join them with house actions and ESA. On this context, ESA Phi-Lab Finland additionally has a powerful presence.
