San Diego scientists are getting ready to put Earth under some serious scrutiny from orbit. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla will lead a NASA satellite mission built to map the three-dimensional height of Earth’s land, ice and coastal surfaces. The Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer, or EDGE, is designed to collect dense elevation swaths from space and give scientists a much finer view of how terrain and ecosystems are changing. Local researchers say the incoming data could sharpen flood forecasts, coastal planning and infrastructure risk assessments across Southern California and far beyond.
According to NASA, the agency announced the selection of EDGE on Feb. 5, 2026 as one of two Earth System Explorers to advance into mission development. NASA says each mission will undergo a confirmation review in 2027 and, if confirmed, would target a launch no earlier than 2030 with development costs not to exceed $355 million (launch excluded). The agency describes EDGE as an observatory that will map three-dimensional structure across ecosystems and ice to provide new inputs for disaster response and long-range planning.
How the 'space lasers' will map the planet
The EDGE instrument is a next-generation swath-mapping lidar that gathers wide strips of elevation data from orbit instead of the narrow, repeat tracks used by earlier missions. As outlined by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, solid-state scanning splits each of five lasers into an eight-beam mini-swath, creating a dense multi-beam footprint that greatly increases spatial sampling compared with GEDI or ICESat-2. The mission team says that architecture delivers order-of-magnitude gains in sampling and accuracy, with roughly under 3 meters horizontal and better than 8 centimeters vertical on low slopes, enabling detailed 3D views of glaciers, forests and coastlines.
San Diego scientists at the helm
UC San Diego Today notes EDGE is the first NASA satellite mission to be led by the campus, with Scripps glaciologist Helen Amanda Fricker serving as principal investigator. In the university release Fricker said, "EDGE will deliver greater global coverage than all prior missions combined, giving us the ability to monitor land, vegetation, ice, and coastal regions simultaneously." University leaders framed the selection as a milestone for local research and a potential source of high-value data for regional planners and emergency managers.
Timeline, partners and what to watch next
The mission now moves into detailed design and development ahead of NASA's confirmation review in 2027 and a possible launch in the early 2030s. Mission pages note NASA Goddard is expected to be the implementing center while industry partners such as Lanteris Space Systems will provide the spacecraft platform. The science roster already includes researchers from institutions such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and local coverage of the selection appeared in San Diego media today via CBS 8.
