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Sentinel-2
The 1,140 kg European Sentinel-2A satellite lifted off from Kourou atop a Vega launcher on 23rd June 2015. Its twin Sentinel-2B joined it in the same 786-km orbit on 7 March 2017. Together, they will deliver images with a ground swath of 290 km and a resolution of 10 x 60 m every 5 days, ranging from visible to mid-infrared wavelengths.
This imagery serves a broad range of applications, monitoring crop and forest growth, land occupancy, farming practices and yields, or coasts, helping scientists to better understand the mechanisms and impacts of the climate system. It also aids humanitarian organizations and governments to respond to emergencies such as landslides, volcano eruptions, floods, and other natural disasters.
Drawing on the heritage of NASA’s Landsat and CNES’s SPOT programmes, the Sentinel-2 mission is part of the European Union’s Copernicus global environmental monitoring and security programme. The European Space Agency (ESA) has led the development of the 2 satellites, their instruments, and the ground segment. The spacecraft have been designed and built by a consortium of 60 firms headed by Airbus Defence & Space. Under a cooperation agreement, CNES developed the prototype for the data processing ground segment, defined and prototyped level 1 image processing procedures, and developed an image quality system and a level 2 (cloud detection and atmospheric corrections) image processing demonstrator. CNES makes Sentinel-2 data available for free on the Internet via its PEPS Sentinel Product Exploitation Platform, and delivers products corrected for atmospheric effects through the Theia land surfaces data hub.
Mission's news feed
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[Press] MICROSCOPE: final results achieve record levels of precision
The MICROSCOPE mission has delivered its latest results and has confirmed the equivalence principle with unprecedented accuracy. A new victory for the Theory of General Relativity...
September 14, 2022
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End of mission for Microscope - CNES’s satellite bows out with successful and innovative de-orbiting
CNES teams have achieved a first with the innovative passive de-orbiting of the Microscope satellite (MICROSatellite à trainée Compensée pour l'Observation du Principe d...
October 18, 2018
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Innovative end for Microscope
Having reached the end of its mission, the French Microscope satellite is set to perform one last manoeuvre with a new de-orbiting system designed to avert space debris. Isabelle...
October 15, 2018