Satellite-borne sensors are now routinely observing the Earth's land and sea surfaces in a range of wavebands and at a variety of spatial scales.The best-known of these systems, carried by Landsat, has been operating since 1972; more recently, the French SPOT and the Japanese MOS programmes have provided high-resolution data in the visible and infrared regions, while coarse-resolution imagery has continued to be supplied by AVHRR and the Meteosat and related geostationary satellite systems.The launch in 1991 of the European ERSl and the Japanese JERS-1 provided imaging radar data for the first time since Seasat in 1978.Plans for the next 10 years include:-ERS-2 (1993), which will carry a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) similar to the ERS-1 SAR, plus a visible and infrared narrow-band scanner (ATSR-21, -NOAA '1' -'M' (1993)(1994)(1995)(1996), carrying the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer-2 and -3 (AVHRR-2/-3), -Landsat-6 (1993), which will have an Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) instrument, -SPOT-3 (1993), with the High Resolution Visible (HRV) sensor equivalent to SPOT-1 and -2, -SPOT-4 (1996), carrying an enhanced HRV termed the HRVIV or High Resolution Visible and Infrared sensor, plus the Vegetation Censor, and -Radarsat (1995), which will have a Synthetic Aperture Radar.ESA is planning for the launch of the first Polar Orbit Earth Observation Mission (POEM) in 1997.There are two separate sensor packages planned for POEM:
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