ESA and Enterprise Ireland have signed an agreement that gives Ireland access to data from the Copernicus Sentinel satellites and helps Ireland to exploit these data to benefit their country.
The agreement was signed on 13 October at ESA in the Netherlands just before the Copernicus Sentinel-5P launch event.
Sentinel-5P, which will monitor air pollution, blasted off at 09:27 GMT from Russia. It joins five other Sentinel satellites in orbit that are already delivering a wealth of complementary imagery and data for the Copernicus services.
Led by the EC, the Copernicus programme was put in place to manage the environment and respond to the challenges of a changing world.
As part of the programme, ESA is responsible for the 'space component', which not only includes the Sentinel satellites, but also the network of receiving stations and processing centres through which data are made available for the range of Copernicus.