Taranis & Seosat

Taranis, named after the Celtic god of lightning and thunder, is an observation satellite of the French Space Agency (CNES) that will study the transient events produced in the Earth's atmospheric layer between 10 kilometres and 100 kilometres altitude. The satellite is intended to collect data on transient events that are observed during thunderstorms. These events are happening between the medium and upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, and the magnetosphere (radiation belts). The resulting phenomena in visible light are called Transient Luminous Events (TLE) and take a great diversity of forms (elves, halos, blue jets) varying in color, shape, and duration. Thunderstorms are also known to generate gamma and X-ray emissions called Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes (TGF), generated by intense electric fields in which the electrons are accelerated to the point of reaching an energy of up to 30 MeV. The link between TLEs and TGFs is one of the scientific questions of the TARANIS mission. Lightning-induced Electron Precipitations (LEP) will also be studied. All these events have associated electromagnetic wave emissions that will be investigated as well. The Atmosphere-Space Interaction Monitor will operate at the same time as TARANIS and will provide complementary observations.

Ingenio (or SEOSat/Ingenio) is a Spanish project to produce a satellite capable of providing wide-field imagery (230 60 km × 60 km frames a day) at 2.5 m panchromatic resolution and 10 m colour resolution, from a sun-synchronous polar orbit; it is Spain's first optical imaging satellite. The satellite is part of the Spanish Earth Observation Satellite program.