The media had a sneak peek at the first Sentinel satellite today ahead of its launch next spring.
The media had a sneak peek at the first Sentinel satellite today ahead of its launch next spring.
ESA is developing the Earth-observing Sentinel missions to meet the needs of Europe's Copernicus programme.
The first in the series, Sentinel-1, will provide all-weather, day-or-night radar images for emergency responses, marine and land monitoring, civil security and climate studies, among other applications.
It will ensure the continuity of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, building on ESA's heritage C-band SAR systems on ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat. Sentinel-1 will provide global coverage with a focus on Europe, Canada and the main shipping routes, with data delivered within a few hours of acquisition - a big improvement over existing SAR systems.
The mission will fly a pair of satellites, the first of which is planned to be launched next spring from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Its sister Sentinel-1B will follow in 2015.