The ESA Centre for Earth Observation (also known as ESRIN) located in Frascati

Frascati

Frascati is a town and comune in the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, being the location of several international scientific...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, is one of the five specialised centres of the European Space Agency

European Space Agency

The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states...

 (ESA) located across Europe. Among other things the establishment currently hosts the ESA development team for the Vega Launcher.

History

ESLAR, a laboratory for advanced research was created in 1966 mainly to break the political deadlock over the location of ESLAB. Later renamed ESRIN, an acronym for European Space Research Institute, ESLAR was based in Frascati (Italy). The ESRO

ESRO

The European Space Research Organization was an international organisation founded by 10 European nations with the intention of jointly pursuing scientific research in space. It was founded in 1964...

 Convention describes ESRINs' role in the following manner:

The facility began acquiring data from environmental satellites in the 1970s.