Sentinel-2, planned for launch next year, is one of five Sentinel missions that ESA is developing for Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme.
SENTINEL-2Sentinel-2A completed its functional test campaign at Airbus Defence & Space (DE) and was shipped to IABG in August to undergo its environmental test campaign.The Optical Communication Payload (that will be used to recover mission data through EDRS) will be delivered, integrated and tested in December prior to the final EMC radiated qualification test campaign. By the end of the EMC tests in February 2015, and pending confirmation from the Sentinel-2A Qualification and Acceptance Review Board scheduled in March 2015, Sentinel-2A will be ready for shipment to Europe’s Spaceport. On this basis, the Sentinel-2A launch is planned for early 2015.In-orbit commissioning preparations are conducted concurrently with the involvement of all the teams involved for operating, calibrating, validating and exploiting the Sentinel-2 mission. In the meantime, the functional testing of the second FM satellite is ongoing at Airbus Defence & Space (DE) and the delivery of the second payload instrument FM by Airbus Defence & Space (FR) is expected in July 2015. The good development status is consistent with a Sentinel-2B launch readiness in Spring 2016.
This timelapse video shows Sentinel-2B satellite, from final preparations to liftoff on a Vega launcher, flight VV09, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on 7 March 2017.Sentinel-2B is the second satellite in the Sentinel-2 mission for Europe’s Copernicus environment monitoring programme.Designed as a two-satellite constellation – Sentinel-2A and -2B – the Sentinel-2 mission carries an innovative wide swath high-resolution multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands for a new perspective of our land and vegetation. This information is used for agricultural and forestry practices and for helping manage food security. It also provides information on pollution in lakes and coastal waters. Images of floods, volcanic eruptions and landslides contribute to disaster mapping and help humanitarian relief efforts.
With the Sentinel-2B satellite close to beginning its working life in orbit, this latest Copernicus satellite has linked up to Alphasat by laser, across almost 36 000 km of space, to deliver images of Earth just moments after they were captured.The test, which was done as part of Sentinel-2B’s commissioning, included capturing a strip of images from Europe to North Africa and downlinking the data in just six minutes.