University Textbook
University textbook Earth Observation with ESA Missions is a textbook written primarily for students of the Faculty of Mining, Ecology, Process Control and Geotechnologies, the Technical University of Košice, in the field of study geodesy and geoinformatics. The textbook reflects the current needs and possibilities of education in these disciplines in higher education studies of the 1 st and 2nd level of higher education. Within the preparation of the equivalent study subject, freely accessible lectures and tutorials for exercises are also prepared, which were created for the field of study Engineering Surveying and Cadastre of Real Estate in the 2nd level of higher education.
The course has been developed in the framework of the international project entitled University Course Earth Observation with ESA Missions within the framework of the activity Plan for European Cooperating States (PECS) launched by the European Space
Agency ESA under the fifth call, Part E – Educational Activities. The PECS activity is aimed at the development of projects by research and commercial entities of the applicant country for membership of the European Space Agency in several areas: Flight Hardware, Preparatory Activities, Research and Development Activities, Space Applications, Products and Services and Educational Activities. The main objective of this course is to teach university students in the field of remote sensing, but more importantly, to get them interested in working in this field. The course curriculum allows students to acquire the latest knowledge in the use of space technologies offered by ESA and prepare them for future professional careers in these fields.
The curriculum consists of 12 chapters, introducing ESA’s historical, current, and planned Earth observation missions, online access to these data, and third-party data. The following
chapters present the theory of electromagnetic radiation, its physical principles and interaction with the environment, and its use in optical and radar DPZ. A separate chapter covers image processing and enhancement, image analysis and classification needed for object detection. Two chapters are devoted to radar DPZ – fundamentals and SAR applications. A large part of the textbook consists of the use of data acquired primarily by ESA missions in areas such as land cover mapping, geological and mining mapping, forestry, water, snow and ice mapping, and use in monitoring and mapping natural disasters.
The text of the book is prepared in a combination of Slovak and English, with chapter titles, abstracts and figure titles in English.
All the materials produced to support this course – the undergraduate textbook, lectures and tutorials – are available on the website created for this purpose https://eo-esa.fberg.tuke.sk.
We believe that the prepared textbook and other supporting materials will be a useful and beneficial learning tool for students and possibly other practitioners.
