EarthCARE (derived from Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer), nicknamed Hakuryū (Japanese for "white dragon"),[4] is a joint European/Japanese (ESA / JAXA / NICT) satellite, the sixth of ESA's Earth Explorer Programme.

[10] A significant proportion of the project will be manufactured in the UK, the main structure of the spacecraft will be built by RUAG Space in Switzerland and subsequently completed in Astrium's Stevenage facility, while one of the instruments will be made in Sevenoaks by SSTL and another in Bristol, Somerset by SEA Group Ltd, now part of Thales Alenia Space UK.

[10] In September 2014, ESA and JAXA held a joined EarthCARE International Science Workshop.

The high-performance lidar and radar technology, plus the synergistic use of the different remote sensing techniques embarked on board EarthCARE, will deliver unprecedented datasets allowing scientists to study the relationship of clouds, aerosols, and radiation at accuracy levels that will significantly improve our understanding of these highly-variable parameters.

In particular, a combination of active (lidar and radar) and passive (radiometers and imagers) instruments will enable EarthCARE to simultaneously measure the vertical and horizontal distribution of clouds and atmospheric aerosols along with top-of-atmosphere (TOA) long- and short-wave fluxes.