ESA and the UK Space Agency have signed an arrangement that establishes access to data from the Sentinel satellites, marking a significant step in their exploitation.

Following the launch of Sentinel-1A in April 2014, the next in the series of satellites, Sentinel-2A, is scheduled for launch in June.

The Sentinel-2 mission will provide 'colour vision' for Europe's Copernicus environment monitoring programme, with data being used to monitor plant health, changing lands, inland water bodies, the coastal environment and support disaster mapping.

Data from the Sentinel satellites and contributing missions to the Copernicus programme are freely accessible for Copernicus Services, as well as to scientific and other users.