Today, the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite has taken another step towards being fully 'operational' as the first data from its Ocean and Land Colour Instrument are made available to monitor the health of our planet.

Following its launch in February, the satellite and instruments have been thoroughly tested and fine-tuned - leading to this important milestone.

Carrying a suite of instruments, Sentinel-3A is arguably the most complex of all the Copernicus Sentinels.

It has been designed to measure Earth's oceans, land, ice and atmosphere to monitor large-scale global dynamics and to provide critical near-realtime information for numerous ocean, land and weather applications.