ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10061
Open Date: 04/11/2019
Closing Date: 24/01/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 19.155.11
Prog. Ref.: EO-Science for Socie
Budget Ref.: E/E105-E5 – EO-Science for Socie
Special Prov.: AT+BE+CZ+DK+EE+FI+FR+DE+GR+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+ES+SE+CH+GB+CA+SI
Tender Type: C
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Products: Satellites & Probes / Other
Technology Domains: Others
Establishment: ESRIN
Directorate: Directorate of EO Programmes
Department: Science, Applications & Climate Dep.
Division: Data Applications Division
Contract Officer: Frigot, Emma
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 08/11/2019
Update Reason: Loaded a new Clarification(English version)

In the last few years, ESA has initiated a significant number of activities in different areas of Polar and cryosphere science. These activities comprise scientific studies, development of applications, novel mission concept studies, and campaigns. With the believe that it would had being extremely beneficial to establish a technical forum for all teams involved and ESA to present the work done, discuss opportunities and define potential ways forward, ESA organised a Polar Science Collocation Meeting taken place in ESRIN (Frascati), the 28-30 June 2017. As a result of the meeting, a report was drafted providing a number of recommendations to guide future ESA activities. This project aims at addressing some of this recommendations. In particular, Polar+ will cover four main priority areas on Polar research, where current EO technology may provide a key contribution: i.e., – Snow on sea ice;- Antarctic IceShelves;- Greenland Hydrology;- Surface Mass Balance feasibility;In this context, Polar+ aims at addressing these four topics through four separated and independent contracts. With this activity ESA wants to maximize the scientific impact of current European EO capabilities (e.g., Cryosat, Sentinel series, Altika) also in combination with new non-European datasets (e.g., Icesat-2) toadvance our understanding of the Polar regions and reinforce ESA contribution to the international scientific efforts on Polar research.This activity also contributes to the solid collaboration between ESA and the EC DG-RTD on Polar science. Coordination of this activities and existing and planned EC relevant projects will be mandatory.