Greenlight for next two ESA Scout missions

Hibidis is designed to reveal new insights into understorey biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, while SOVA-S will investigate how atmospheric gravity waves influence the upper atmosphere and thermosphere.

The selection was formally approved today by ESA’s Earth Observation Programme Board following an intensive 10-month evaluation process.

Complementing the well-established series of Earth Explorer research satellite missions, Scouts are a relatively recent component of ESA’s Earth Observation FutureEO programme. This family of small satellites delivers value-added science, either by miniaturising existing space technologies or by demonstrating new observing techniques. Importantly, the overarching aim is to achieve all of this quickly.

Embracing the concept of New Space, the Scout category of missions follows an extremely agile and low-cost development process.

Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes, Simonetta Cheli, said, “The ESA Scout missions show that achieving groundbreaking Earth science doesn’t always require large budgets and long development times. By moving fast, embracing innovation and empowering emerging ideas, these missions demonstrate how agility and creativity can accelerate progress, delivering impactful science and technology in a remarkably short timeframe.

“Nevertheless, the decision to greenlight Hibidis and SOVA-S was not taken lightly and the final decision only came after the four concepts were stringently assessed. We congratulate the Hibidis and SOVA-S teams and now look forward to making them a reality.”

Hibidis and SOVA-S now join the family of Scouts that includes HydroGNSS which was launched in November 2025 to provide measurements of key hydrological climate variables, NanoMagSat in development to further understand the dynamics of the magnetic field and of the role of the Sun in the coupled atmospheric–ionospheric–magnetospheric system, and Tango in development to measure methane, carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide being emitted from large industrial sites.

Hibidis
Hibidis stands for Hyperspectral Biodiversity Scout – and as its full name suggests, it will carry a hyperspectral imager to improve our understanding of understorey ecosystem biodiversity.

By viewing selected areas of Earth’s surface from three different angles, this clever instrument will be able to separate forest canopies from understories so that various Essential Biodiversity Variables can be assessed.

SITAEL in Italy is the prime contractor for Hibidis. SITAEL CEO, Chiara Pertosa, said, “We are proud that SITAEL is leading the ESA Scout Hibidis mission, dedicated to biodiversity. Thanks to the new Empyreum platform, Hibidis will generate data that are currently unavailable, opening up new opportunities for monitoring terrestrial ecosystems.

“I would like to thank our partners AMOS for the hyperspectral instrument, and VITO and the University of Zurich for the data processing and the scientific contribution to the mission.”

SOVA-S
SOVA-S stands for Satellite Observation of Waves in the Atmosphere – Scout. It will carry a shortwave infrared imager to provide near-global daily observations of gravity waves at an altitude of between 80 km and 120 km. It will do this by measuring the intensity of ‘airglow’ – a faint emission of light produced by a chemical reaction in the atmosphere.

Atmospheric gravity waves play an important role in shaping Earth’s climate, but current climate models do not yet fully capture their effects. Like ocean waves in the air, they carry large amounts of energy from the lower atmosphere to higher altitudes, where they break and influence atmospheric circulation over vast distances. The mission’s data will help improve climate and space-weather models, leading to better forecasting of extreme weather and more accurate GNSS positioning for applications such as aviation.

OHB Czechspace is the prime contractor for SOVA-S. Managing Director of OHB Czechspace, Vit Pavelec, said, “The selection of SOVA-S marks a major milestone for both our team and the Czech space sector.

“As prime contractor, we are proud to lead development of what will be the largest satellite ever built in the Czech Republic. Equally important is the strong Czech-Bavarian cooperation with DLR and industrial partners, alongside close Czech-German collaboration on the satellite platform, demonstrating Europe’s ability to unite expertise across borders to deliver ambitious space missions.”