Launched on 3 April, ESA's Sentinel-1A satellite has already delivered its first radar images of Earth. They offer a tantalising glimpse of the kind of operational imagery that this new mission will provide for Europe's ambitious Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.

Rather aptly, the first image shows Brussels in Belgium, the seat of the European Commission.

The European Commission leads the Copernicus programme and coordinates the broad range of services to improve the management of the environment and to safeguard everyday lives. ESA is responsible for developing the family of Sentinel satellites and for ensuring that the stream of data are available for these services.

Read more about Sentinel-1's first images.

This first image of Belgium was captured on 12 April, just one day after the satellite was put into its operational attitude, and demonstrates the potential of Sentinel-1A's radar vision.