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Following Sentinel-1C encapsulation inside the Vega-C rocket fairing, the team at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou has signed the sticker on the rocket as per tradition.
Scheduled to lift off on 5 December 2024, Sentinel-1C is the third Sentinel-1 satellite to be launched as part of Europe’s Copernicus programme. It will continue the critical task of delivering radar imagery for a wide range of services, applications and science – all of which benefit society.
Credits: ESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE/Optique vidéo du CSG-P.Piperot
Soyuz VS07 upper composite, comprising the Fregat upper stage, payload and fairing, was transferred from the S3B integration facility to the Soyuz launch pad (ZLS), hoisted into the mobile gantry where it was integrated atop Soyuz, on 31 March 2014.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Cities in Emilia-Romagna, a region in northern Italy, have been hit by severe flooding after heavy rainfall over the weekend. The flooding affected Bologna (not pictured), and other cities in the surrounding area including Modena and Reggio Emilia.
Flooded areas across the region are visible in this multi-temporal image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission between 8 and 20 October 2024. The comparison uses an image from 8 October (before the floods) and one from 20 October (after the floods). The blue areas highlight the areas impacted by flooding.
In response, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service has been activated to produce detailed maps of the affected areas. There has also been heavy rain and storms in other parts of Italy, particularly Sicily, where landslides and fallen trees have blocked roads.
The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, with its ability to penetrate cloud cover and frequent revisit times, is ideal for flood monitoring, enabling the assessment of flood extent and its impact on people and the environment.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Sentinel-1B lifted off on a Soyuz rocket, flight VS14, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 25 April 21:02 GMT (23:02 CEST). With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago from Kourou. Both satellites carry an advanced radar that images Earth’s surface through cloud and rain regardless of whether it is day or night. By orbiting 180° apart, global coverage and data delivery are optimised for the environmental monitoring Copernicus programme. The mission provides radar imagery for a multitude of services and applications to improve everyday life and understand our changing planet.
Three CubeSats piggybacked a ride on Soyuz. These small satellites, each measuring just 10×10×11 cm, have been developed by university student teams through ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! effort. The other passenger is the Microscope satellite from France’s CNES space agency.
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
In the final weeks leading to the Sentinel-1A launch, set for 3 April 2014, the mission control teams at ESA’s operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany have been training intensively.
The simulation sessions – often running through a full 12-hour shift – are conducted ‘on console’ in the Main Control Room, and pace the teams through every step of the satellite’s launch and entry into orbit.
Trainers inject a carefully staged series of faults, errors and failures into the satellite or into the software and systems used to fly it. Meanwhile, the mission controllers sitting on console must recognise and assess the problem and apply the correct contingency procedure.
In this image, Juan Vizcaya, one of two Sentinel-1A Ground Operation Managers, watches intently for any problems with the ground tracking stations or network systems used to communicate with Sentinel.
Methods: Time-ensemble-averaged sigma0 from #Copernicus #Sentinel1
images #GoogleEarthEngine
Date: 9-mar-2016
source: Edward Morris
The Sentinel-1A satellite is now fuelled. This rather hazardous operation cannot be rushed and took a week to complete. The next step is to fix the satellite to the Fregat upper stage of the Soyuz launcher and encapsulate in the rocket fairing. Launch from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana is set for 3 April at 21:02 GMT (23:02 CEST).
Credit: ESA–B. v/d Elst
On 19 November 2024 at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, Earth-observer Sentinel-1C and its payload adapter were encapsulated inside the Vega-C rocket fairing that will protect the spacecraft on the launch pad and on its ascent towards space.
Earth-observer Sentinel-1C is set to launch on Vega-C rocket flight VV25. At 35 m tall, Vega-C weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad and reaches orbit with three solid-propellant-powered stages before the fourth liquid-propellant stage takes over for precise placement of Sentinel-1C into its orbit.
The fairing is a nose-cone that splits vertically in two once the rocket has passed Earth's atmosphere, revealing Sentinel-1C to space.
Carrying advanced radar technology to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface, the ambitious Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has raised the bar for spaceborne radar.
The mission benefits numerous Copernicus services and applications such as those that relate to Arctic sea-ice monitoring, iceberg tracking, routine sea-ice mapping, glacier-velocity monitoring, surveillance of the marine environment including oil-spill monitoring and ship detection for maritime security as well as illegal fisheries monitoring.
Europe’s Vega-C rocket can launch 2300 kg into space, such as small scientific and Earth observation spacecraft. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
Credits: ESA - M. Pédoussaut
On 20 May, over a million tonnes of dirt and rock buried part of California’s Highway 1 along the Pacific coastline in the state’s Big Sur region. In addition to cutting off the route, the landslide added some 5 hectares of land to the shoreline.
Sentinel-1’s radar shows that the ground that slid down the mountain was moving in the two years before the landslide.
The radar data were processed using Small Baseline Subset interferometry (SBAS), a technique that can detect and monitor movements over wide areas with high sensitivity. In this image, red dots represent points where the ground was moving away from the satellite at a rate of more than 70 mm per year. Green dots show stable ground in the surrounding area.
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2015–17), processed by Norut
Soyuz VS07 was transferred from the preparation building MIK to the Soyuz launch zone of the Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on 31 March 2014.
The vehicle was rolled out horizontally on its erector from the MIK to the launch zone and then raised into the vertical position.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Soyuz VS14 upper composite in the S3B preparation building in preparation for the 22 April 2016 launch.
Once in orbit, it will provide radar images of Earth for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago.
More about Sentinel-1:
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
Soyuz VS14 in the mobile gantry after liquid fuel transfer on 24 April 2016.
The Soyuz VS14 mission launching from the Guiana Space Center carries into orbit the Sentinel-1B satellite for the European Commission’s Copernicus Earth Observation Program. In addition to the primary payload, the mission is carrying the MicroSCOPE Satellite and three CubeSats to orbit.
Once in orbit, Sentinel-1B will provide radar images of Earth for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago.
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
Like shining jewels in the water, ships passing through the Panama Canal, which cuts across Central America, have been captured in this Copernicus Sentinel-1 image.
Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the 80 km-long Panama Canal is one of the greatest engineering projects of the last century.
Locks at either end are used to raise and lower the water level by as much as 26 metres: ships entering the canal are raised and then lowered to sea level as they exit. Under normal conditions, the canal sees up to 14,000 vessels pass every year, making it one of the busiest maritime passages in the world.
Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites carry radar instruments to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface, making it ideal to monitor ship traffic.
Here, hundreds of radar images acquired from 2020 to 2022 have been compressed into a single image. Separate colours have been assigned to each year to highlight differences: blue for images from 2020, green for 2021 and red for 2022. At either end of the canal, ships that are entering, exiting and waiting to pass through the waterway appear as dots of red, green and blue depending on the year.
While the trace of marine traffic is clear to see in channel, so too is traffic in Lake Gatun – the large, black jagged inland water body in the centre of the image.
Lake Gatun was created by damming the Chagres River to the north, where the river, which flows into the Caribbean Sea, can be seen as a black winding line. Water from the lake helps to keep the locks operational. However, this year Panama has been experiencing one of its driest seasons on record, significantly affecting the supply of freshwater needed to fill the locks.
In the last few months, this severe drought has forced the Panama Canal authority to gradually reduce the number of ships entering the canal from a 37 daily average to a maximum of 31 per day, which has impacted maritime traffic and the local and global economy.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020-22), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This false-colour radar image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1D mission on 7 November 2025 over the city of Bremen and its surroundings. Different radar polarisations acquired by the satellite were mapped to the red, green and blue channels. As a result, those vibrant colours highlight different types of land cover such as urban areas, water bodies and cultivated fields.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Hoisting the Earth-observer Sentinel-1C to its "vampire" payload launch adapter (right) that will connect the satellite to the Vega-C rocket that will launch it into a polar orbit.
Earth-observer Sentinel-1C is set to launch on Vega-C rocket flight VV25. At 35 m tall, Vega-C weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad and reaches orbit with three solid-propellant-powered stages before the fourth liquid-propellant stage takes over for precise placement of Sentinel-1C into its orbit.
The payload adapter connects the satellite and the rocket launching it. The VAMPIRE backronym stands for Vega Adapter for Multiple Payload Injection and Release.
In the background are the two fairing halves that will protect Sentinel-1C from the elements on the launch pad and during launch through our atmosphere.
Carrying advanced radar technology to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface, the ambitious Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has raised the bar for spaceborne radar.
The mission benefits numerous Copernicus services and applications such as those that relate to Arctic sea-ice monitoring, iceberg tracking, routine sea-ice mapping, glacier-velocity monitoring, surveillance of the marine environment including oil-spill monitoring and ship detection for maritime security as well as illegal fisheries monitoring.
Europe’s Vega-C rocket can launch 2300 kg into space, such as small scientific and Earth observation spacecraft. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique du vidéo du CSG–S. Martin
Sentinel-1B satellite lowered onto Fregat upper stage in preparation for the 22 April 2016 launch. This stage of the launch campaign took place on Thursday 14 April in the S3B preparation building of the Guiana Space Centre.
Once in orbit, it will provide radar images of Earth for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago.
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
Soyuz VS14 upper composite in the S3B preparation building in preparation for the 22 April 2016 launch.
Once in orbit, it will provide radar images of Earth for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago.
More about Sentinel-1:
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
Soyuz VS07 upper composite, comprising the Fregat upper stage, payload and fairing, was transferred from the S3B integration facility to the Soyuz launch pad (ZLS), hoisted into the mobile gantry where it was integrated atop Soyuz, on 31 March 2014.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Date: 2021-12-20
Sentinel-1 GRD+ RGB ratio script
Author: Monja Šebela
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2021], processed by Sentinel Hub
Soyuz VS07 with ESA’s Sentinel-1A satellite lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 23:02:26 CEST (21:02:26 GMT) on 3 April 2014.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Soyuz VS07 upper composite, comprising the Fregat upper stage, payload and fairing, was transferred from the S3B integration facility to the Soyuz launch pad (ZLS), hoisted into the mobile gantry where it was integrated atop Soyuz, on 31 March 2014.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Sentinel-1B satellite lowered onto Fregat upper stage in preparation for the 22 April 2016 launch. This stage of the launch campaign took place on Thursday 14 April in the S3B preparation building of the Guiana Space Centre.
Once in orbit, it will provide radar images of Earth for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago.
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
Soyuz VS14 upper composite in the S3B preparation building in preparation for the 22 April 2016 launch.
Once in orbit, it will provide radar images of Earth for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago.
More about Sentinel-1:
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
This image from the Sentinel-1A radar satellite on 6 June shows part of the Philippine island of Luzon with Mount Pinatubo.
This active volcano experienced a major eruption on 15 June 1991 that injected more particulate matter into the atmosphere than any eruption since Krakatoa in 1883. In the months following, aerosols formed a layer of sulphuric acid haze around the globe, ozone depletion increased and global temperatures dropped by about 0.5°C.
In the upper-central part of the image, the dark area is Lake Pinatubo, which formed in the summit crater after the 1991 eruption. The water level has been rapidly increasing since its formation, putting pressure on the crater walls, which threaten to collapse and cause flash floods. The Philippine government has taken measures to alleviate the pressure with controlled draining.
South of Lake Pinatubo near the centre of the image is Mapanuepe Lake, which also formed as a result of the 1991 eruption. When mud mixed with water and volcanic rock fragments flowed down from Pinatubo, it blocked the drainage of the river. The valley – including the settlements – was inundated. These mud and volcanic debris flows are still visible reaching west towards the South China Sea.
Other features visible in this image include the bright radar reflections from a shipyard on the Subic Bay to the south, and the vast expanse of aquaculture on the edge of Manila Bay in the lower-right corner.
Sentinel-1A was launched on 3 April, and is the first in a fleet of Sentinel satellites developed for Europe’s Copernicus environment monitoring programme. Although the satellite is still being commissioned, images like this early example illustrate the kind of data the mission will provide.
This image is featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credit: ESA
The double-satellite Proba-3 stack and their upper stage were encapsulated within their launcher fairing on 29 November. The last red tag and green tag items were removed/installed and the team took a final look at their mission with their own eyes. Proba-3 is due to launch on a PSLV-XL launcher at the SHAR base of the Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO, on 4 December.
ESA’s twin Proba-3 platforms will perform precise formation flying down to a single millimetre, as if they were one single giant spacecraft. To demonstrate their degree of control, the pair will produce artificial solar eclipses in orbit, giving prolonged views of the Sun’s ghostly surrounding atmosphere, the corona.
Follow the launch campaign on our Proba-3 blog.
Credits: ESA
The raster is a radar band composite of ESA's brand new Sentinel-1 exported from the Sentinel-1 Toolbox into QGIS.
The nice semi-transparent box with drop shadow is achieved through a QGIS composer html item.
This image is one of the first to be captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1D satellite, which carries a 12 m-long synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instrument. It was captured on the night of 6 November (European time) and the data was then transmitted from the satellite to the Matera ground station, in Italy. All this was done within 50 hours of launch, which is likely to be the shortest time from launch to data delivery for a radar-based Earth observation satellite.
Radar instruments are particularly useful for imaging Earth’s surface through rain and cloud, as well as in darkness, making radar an ideal remote-sensing tool for observing polar regions. The satellite also carries an Automatic Identification System (AIS) instrument – enabling the mission to improve detection and tracking of ships over maritime zones.
The Antarctic Peninsula, which is part of the larger peninsula of West Antarctica, protrudes 1300 km. It is an ice sheet resting on a string of rocky islands and its tip is just 1000 km from the southern tip of South America. The Antarctic Peninsula ice sheet is one of the smallest ice sheets in Antarctica but is perhaps the most vulnerable to climate change as its glaciers are small and in a region of rapid warming. Observable changes such as collapsing ice shelves, thinning and accelerating glaciers are all key indicators of climate change in the region.
This image is in black and white, showing the contrast between the ocean and the peninsula’s icy landscape. The black and white represents the intensity of the radar signals that reflect off Earth’s surface – known as ‘backscatter’. Surfaces such as ice and snow reflect stronger radar signals, represented by brighter pixels in the image. Darker pixels denote lower-intensity backscatter, which is created when the radar signal reflects off a specular surface – in this case the surface of the Southern Ocean.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Soyuz VS07 with ESA’s Sentinel-1A satellite lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 23:02:26 CEST (21:02:26 GMT) on 3 April 2014.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Soyuz VS07 was transferred from the preparation building MIK to the Soyuz launch zone of the Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on 31 March 2014.
The vehicle was rolled out horizontally on its erector from the MIK to the launch zone and then raised into the vertical position.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Soyuz VS07 with ESA’s Sentinel-1A satellite lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 23:02:26 CEST (21:02:26 GMT) on 3 April 2014.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Testing the deployment of the Sentinel-1A radar antenna in the cleanroom at Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France, on 21 January 2014. As the satellite is designed to operate in orbit, it is hung from a structure during tests to simulate weightlessness.
The Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR, will provide an all-weather day-and-night supply of imagery for services such as the monitoring of Arctic sea-ice extent, routine sea-ice mapping, surveillance of the marine environment, monitoring land-surface for motion risks and mapping to support humanitarian aid and crisis situations.
Sentinel-1A – the first satellite built for the Copernicus environmental monitoring programme – is foreseen for launch in the spring of 2014 from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Read more:
www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus...
Sentinel-1B lifted off on a Soyuz rocket, flight VS14, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 25 April 2016 at 21:02 GMT (23:02 CEST).
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
Soyuz VS07 upper composite, comprising the Fregat upper stage, payload and fairing, was transferred from the S3B integration facility to the Soyuz launch pad (ZLS), hoisted into the mobile gantry where it was integrated atop Soyuz, on 31 March 2014.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Soyuz VS07 was transferred from the preparation building MIK to the Soyuz launch zone of the Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on 31 March 2014.
The vehicle was rolled out horizontally on its erector from the MIK to the launch zone and then raised into the vertical position.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Methods: Time-ensemble-averaged sigma0 from #Copernicus #Sentinel1
images #GoogleEarthEngine
Date: 9-mar-2016
source: Edward Morris
Soyuz VS07 was transferred from the preparation building MIK to the Soyuz launch zone of the Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on 31 March 2014.
The vehicle was rolled out horizontally on its erector from the MIK to the launch zone and then raised into the vertical position.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Date: 2022-02-17
Sentinel-1 GRD + custom script with orthorectification
Author: Monja Šebela
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2022], processed by Sentinel Hub
This image over the west coast of the Netherlands is one of the early radar scans by the Sentinel-1A satellite, which was launched on 3 April.
The satellite’s advanced radar can provide imagery under all weather conditions and regardless of whether it is day or night. It can scan Earth’s surface in a range of different modes, enabling it to monitor large areas in lower resolution or to zoom in on a smaller region for a sharper view.
One of the many application areas of the data will be the surveillance of the marine environment, including monitoring oil spills and detecting ships for maritime security, as well as measuring wave height.
In this image, we can clearly see radar reflections from the ships at sea, appearing like stars in a night sky. The two collections of ‘stars’ are reflections from large-scale offshore wind farms, used to generate electricity.
Other visible features include the city of Amsterdam on the centre-right side of the image, and the runways of the nearby Schiphol airport. In the lower part of the image we can see the city of Rotterdam, with Europe’s largest port extending to the left.
Sentinel-1’s radar will also be used for monitoring changes in agricultural land cover – important information for areas with intensive agriculture like the Netherlands.
This image, also featured on the Earth from Space video programme, was acquired on 15 April with the radar operating in ‘stripmap mode’, which provides coverage at a resolution of about 10 m.
Sentinel-1A is the first in a fleet of satellites being developed for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. The satellite is not yet in its operational orbit, but early images like this have given us a taste of what’s to come.
Credit: ESA
Watch Earth from Space:
www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2014/04/Earth_from_Space...
Soyuz VS07 upper composite, comprising the Fregat upper stage, payload and fairing, was transferred from the S3B integration facility to the Soyuz launch pad (ZLS), hoisted into the mobile gantry where it was integrated atop Soyuz, on 31 March 2014.
Soyuz VS07 will lift off on 3 April 2014, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket will carry Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites.
This satellite will be used to monitor many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist humanitarian relief efforts.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014
Date: 2022-01-24
Sentinel-1 GRD + custom script with orthorectification and radiometric terrain correction
Author: Sabina Dolenc
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2022], processed by Sentinel Hub
An iceberg roughly the size of the Isle of Wight has broken off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica on 20 May.
This calving event results from a prolonged weakening of the ice at the McDonald Ice Rumples and progressive eastward extension of the so-called ‘Halloween Crack’ into the ice shelf.
The separation of iceberg A-83 marks the third significant iceberg calving from this region in the past four years. In 2021, the Brunt Ice Shelf produced an iceberg called A-74 followed by an even bigger berg, named A-81, in 2023.
The radar image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, shows the 380 sq km triangular iceberg on 22 May 2024.
The iceberg has been officially identified as A-83 by the US National Ice Center. Antarctic icebergs are named from the Antarctic quadrant in which they were originally sighted, then a sequential number, then, if the iceberg breaks, a sequential letter.
Brunt is located in the eastern Weddell Sea, so its bergs receive an ‘A’ designation and 83 is the next number in the sequence of icebergs calving in this sector.
The calving does not pose a threat to the presently unmanned British Antarctic Survey’s Halley VI Research Station, which was moved in 2017 to a more secure location after the outer ice shelf was deemed unstable.
Routine monitoring by satellites offer unprecedented views of events happening in remote regions like Antarctica, and how ice shelves manage to retain their structural integrity in response to changes in ice dynamics, air and ocean temperatures.
The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission carries radar, which can return images regardless of day or night and this allows us year-round viewing, which is especially important through the long, dark, austral winter months.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Thanks largely to the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, scientists have discovered that the fast-flowing Kohler East Glacier in Antarctica is rapidly siphoning ice from a neighbouring flow – at a pace never before seen. The image depicts the average speed and direction of multiple glaciers flowing into the Crosson and Dotson Ice Shelves in West Antarctica from 2015 to 2022. The arrows show change in direction of flow.
Credits: ESA (data source: Selley et al., 2025, University of Leeds)
Sentinel-1B satellite lowered onto Fregat upper stage in preparation for the 22 April 2016 launch. This stage of the launch campaign took place on Thursday 14 April in the S3B preparation building of the Guiana Space Centre.
Once in orbit, it will provide radar images of Earth for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
With the Sentinel-1 mission designed as a two-satellite constellation, Sentinel-1B will join its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, which was launched two years ago.
Credit: ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut, 2016
Placing the Earth-observer Sentinel-1C onto its "vampire" payload launch adapter to connect the satellite to the Vega-C rocket that will launch it into a polar orbit, 19 November 2024 at Europe Spaceport's payload integration facility.
Earth-observer Sentinel-1C is set to launch on Vega-C rocket flight VV25. At 35 m tall, Vega-C weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad and reaches orbit with three solid-propellant-powered stages before the fourth liquid-propellant stage takes over for precise placement of Sentinel-1C into its orbit.
The payload adapter connects the satellite and the rocket launching it. The VAMPIRE backronym stands for Vega Adapter for Multiple Payload Injection and Release.
In the background are the two fairing halves that will protect Sentinel-1C from the elements on the launch pad and during launch through our atmosphere.
Carrying advanced radar technology to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface, the ambitious Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has raised the bar for spaceborne radar.
The mission benefits numerous Copernicus services and applications such as those that relate to Arctic sea-ice monitoring, iceberg tracking, routine sea-ice mapping, glacier-velocity monitoring, surveillance of the marine environment including oil-spill monitoring and ship detection for maritime security as well as illegal fisheries monitoring.
Europe’s Vega-C rocket can launch 2300 kg into space, such as small scientific and Earth observation spacecraft. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique du vidéo du CSG–S. Martin