We’re delighted to share that Gentian has been awarded funding by ESA, via the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), to lead the Biodiversity Applications workstream as part of the TACOS-TRUTHS project. Our remote sensing senior expert, Olga Tutubalina, is leading our role in the project, advancing satellite-based ecosystem monitoring.
TRUTHS (Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial and Helio-Studies) is ESA’s upcoming hyperspectral satellite mission, scheduled for launch around 2030. Its core mission is to set a new global reference standard for satellite calibration and inter-calibration, delivering unprecedented radiometric accuracy to support climate monitoring and Earth Observation worldwide.
TRUTHS was recently featured at the ESA Living Planet Symposium 2025 in Vienna, with key sessions on 23 and 26 June. This landmark event brought together scientists, policymakers, industry experts, and students to explore the future of EO and climate science. Highlights included:
→ Celebrating Sentinel-2’s 10th anniversary, marking a decade of high-resolution land and water monitoring.
→ ESA’s announcement of Telespazio UK as the ground segment operator for TRUTHS.
→ The immersive “Hakuryu – White Dragon” installation, which transformed EarthCARE mission data into a powerful soundscape featuring voices from astronauts, scientists, and climate-affected communities.
But TRUTHS isn’t just about calibration. A growing applications community—including Gentian—is exploring how its hyperspectral data can advance science, environmental management, and decision-making. Our focus is on biodiversity monitoring from space. Hyperspectral data can help to identify vegetation species more reliably, and obtain insights into ecosystem condition. From tracking ecosystem change to developing new satellite-based biodiversity indicators, we’re excited to help unlock the potential of TRUTHS for nature conservation and ecosystem restoration worldwide.
Today, ground-based surveys for biodiversity are time-consuming, expensive, and hard to scale. Gentian leverages multispectral imagery and AI to assess habitats more efficiently—but finer detail is still needed. That’s where TRUTHS comes in. With its high radiometric accuracy and global cross-calibration capability, this project will enable scalable, detailed identification of habitat types and plant species—especially in critical ecosystems like forests and peatlands across the UK and Canada.
The mission is expected to improve forest mapping accuracy by 20%, enable early detection of ecosystem stress up to 3 months in advance, and expand peatland condition classification from 3 to 5 classes. These capabilities will directly support more accurate biodiversity reporting and nature restoration efforts.
We’re proud to help unlock TRUTHS’ full potential for nature conservation and climate resilience. A huge thank you to ESA, NPL, and all the incredible partners in the TRUTHS community.
To find out more on the Living Planet Symposium highlights visit this page. And if you’re interested in working with Gentian or learning more about our tools, feel free to get in touch via the form below.