With less than a week to liftoff, the next Sentinel satellite for the Copernicus environmental monitoring programme is now in position high up in the launch tower at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The Vega rocket's upper stage is now being fuelled. On Friday there will be a full rehearsal involving Arianespace, the Sentinel-2 team in Kourou and ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Germany in preparation for liftoff, set for 23 June at 01:52 GMT (03:52 CEST; 22:52 local time on 22 June).

After eight years in the making, the satellite arrived at the site at the end of April where it has been tested and encapsulated in the Vega fairing.