Europe's upcoming Sentinel-2 mission has reached a significant milestone on its road to delivering high-resolution optical images for monitoring our changing land. Seven years in the making, the state-of-the art imager is ready to join the first satellite.

While several hundred scientists and users gathered recently to discuss the many applications of this next Sentinel, engineers at Airbus Defence and Space in Germany were taking delivery of the mission's multispectral imager.

Participants at the Sentinel-2 for Science workshop, held in Italy last week, were enthused to hear that the years spent developing, assembling and testing has resulted in an instrument that will transform our ability to monitor how land is being used.