Mission To Planet Earth:
NASA's Earth Science Enterprise

The Earth Science Enterprise (ESE), formerly called Mission To Planet Earth (MTPE), began in 1991 as a comprehensive program for studying Earth environmental change from space.  By integrating data from various Earth observing instruments and programs, scientists hope to gain a greater understanding of Earth's natural processes on a global scale.   This knowledge will enhance our ability for effective natural hazard prediction and monitoring of human effects on the environment.  Some of the Earth systems that the program focusses on include clouds, water and energy cycles, oceans, atmospheric chemistry, land surface, water and ecosystems, glaciers and polar ice, and solid Earth. The program's current data collection efforts involve numerous Earth-orbiting satellites, Space Shuttle and MIR observations, and airborne and ground-based studies.  Part of the ESE program is distributed access of data to researchers around the world. The ESE data system began with EOSDIS in 1994 and   will expand beyond the research community to educational institutions and the general public.

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