{"id":493128,"date":"2025-12-01T19:17:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T23:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/hydrognss-mission-begins-to-study-earths-water-inventory-from-space\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T19:17:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T23:17:30","slug":"hydrognss-mission-begins-to-study-earths-water-inventory-from-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/uncategorized\/hydrognss-mission-begins-to-study-earths-water-inventory-from-space\/","title":{"rendered":"HydroGNSS mission begins to study Earth&#8217;s water inventory from space"},"content":{"rendered":"On November 28, 2025, the two HydroGNSS twin satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) were launched into space \u2014along with other satellites\u2014 by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, from Vandenberg base, California.\n\nLess than 90 minutes after liftoff, the two satellites separated from the rocket. Then, technicians from the company Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), ESA&#8217;s main contractor, confirmed the reception of signals, which indicated that both satellites were in Earth orbit correctly.\n\nThe mission also has partial funding from the UK Space Agency.\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What HydroGNSS will do and how<\/h3>\n\n\nThe satellites will use an innovative technique called GNSS reflectometry (GNSS-R), by which they capture L-band signals from satellite navigation systems (such as GPS or Galileo). These signals, when reflected on the Earth&#8217;s surface, modify their characteristics. By comparing the reflected signals with the direct GNSS signals, the satellites can extract information about physical properties of the terrain.\n\nEach satellite carries a &#8220;delay-Doppler mapping&#8221; receiver: with two antennas \u2014one zenith (for direct GNSS signals) and another nadir (for reflected signals) \u2014 and processes the data to generate delay-Doppler maps.\n\nThanks to this, satellites will be able to measure \u2014on a global scale\u2014 variables such as:\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Soil moisture<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Freezing or thawing state of the ground<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Flood level and extent of surface water bodies or wetlands<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Surface biomass (vegetation)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What it will be used for \u2014 importance and impacts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The generated data will allow for the development of a <strong>global inventory of the Earth&#8217;s water<\/strong>, essential for understanding the global hydrological cycle.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They will be useful for <strong>predicting floods<\/strong> and improving <strong>agricultural planning<\/strong>, especially in vulnerable regions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They will help identify <strong>hidden wetlands<\/strong> under vegetation \u2014key ecosystems for biodiversity and also potential sources of methane.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In areas with snow or permafrost, freezing\/thawing information will provide relevant data on soil energy balance, carbon cycles, and climate change in high latitudes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\nFurthermore, this mission represents a technological milestone: HydroGNSS is part of the ESA&#8217;s &#8220;Scout&#8221; program \u2014 low-cost, rapid-development projects \u2014 designed to test new Earth observation technologies.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On November 28, 2025, the two HydroGNSS twin satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) were launched into space \u2014along with other satellites\u2014 by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, from Vandenberg base, California. Less than 90 minutes after liftoff, the two satellites separated from the rocket. Then, technicians from the company Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-24hG","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","dum_api":{"author_name":"Arelis Suero","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cropped-cropped-Diseno-sin-titulo-41-96x96.jpg","categories_name":["Uncategorized"],"featured_media_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}