• → European Space Agency

      • Space for Europe
      • Space News
      • Space in Images
      • Space in Videos
    • About Us

      • Welcome to ESA
      • DG's news and views
      • For Member State Delegations
      • Business with ESA
      • Law at ESA
      • ESA Exhibitions
      • ESA Publications
      • Careers at ESA
      • ESAshop
    • Our Activities

      • Space News
      • Observing the Earth
      • Human Spaceflight
      • Space Transportation
      • Navigation
      • Space Science
      • Space Engineering & Technology
      • Operations
      • Telecommunications & Integrated Applications
      • Preparing for the Future
    • Careers at ESA

    • For Media

      • Media
      • ESA TV
      • Videos for professionals
      • Photos
    • For Educators

    • For Kids

    • ESA

    • Observing the Earth

    • Understanding Our Planet

    • Securing Our Environment

    • Benefiting Our Economy

    • About Earth observation
    • View from above
    • ESA for Earth
    • How to access data
    • Satellite missions
    • Mission navigator
    • EO programmes and activities
    • Copernicus
    • The Living Planet
    • Campaigns
    • The International Charter Space and Major Disasters
    • Multimedia
    • Image Gallery
    • Video Gallery
    • Download the 2018 Sentinel calendar

    ESA > Our Activities > Observing the Earth

    GMES Sentinel-2 satellite contract signed

    17 April 2008

    ESA PR 24-2008. The European Space Agency and Astrium today signed a €195 million contract to provide the first Sentinel-2 earth observation satellite, devoted to monitoring the land environment, as part of the European GMES programme. As prime contractor, Astrium is responsible for the design, development and integration of the satellite, which will perform a high-end multi-spectral optical imaging mission.

    The contract was signed today in Friedrichshafen by Volker Liebig, ESA Director of Earth Observation, Evert Dudok, President of Astrium Satellites, and Uwe Minne, Director of Earth Observation & Science for Astrium, in the presence of the European Commission and Ulrich Kasparick, German Parliamentary State Secretary at the Transport, Building & Urban Affairs Ministry.

    Underlining the value of this mission for Europe, Volker Liebig commented: "This satellite is an important element of GMES and will enable Europe to continuously observe changes in the environment".

    Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) aims to deliver environment and security services and is being led by the European Commission. It is the European response to the ever-increasing demands of effective environmental policies. At the same time, it is the European contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

    ESA is responsible for implementation of the GMES Space Component, a set of earth observation missions involving ESA, EU/ESA Member States and other partners. Central elements of the Space Component are the five families of Sentinel missions.

    Sentinel-2 will deliver crucial data for information services to the EU and its Member States under GMES. The services fed by it cover areas such as climate change, sustainable development, environmental policies, European civil protection, common agricultural policy, development aid, humanitarian aid and the Common Foreign & Security Policy.

    Sentinel-2 will support the operational generation of products such as the mapping of land cover, land use, change detection and geophysical variables. The mission objective is systematic coverage of the earth’s land surface (from -56° to +83° latitude) to produce cloud-free imagery typically every 15 to 30 days over Europe.


    Sentinel-2
    Sentinel-2

    Sentinel-2 features a 290 km-wide coverage, 10-20 m spatial resolution, 13 optical channel instrument (operating from visible-near infrared to shortwave infrared) and will ensure enhanced-quality continuity with existing missions Spot and Landsat. It will provide improved revisit time, swath width, coverage area, spectral bands, calibration and image quality. These features will enable it to contribute effectively to GMES needs for operational land and emergency services.

    ESA carried out the Sentinel-2 definition phase over 2005/2006. The implementation phase started in October 2007. The launch of the first Sentinel-2 satellite is planned for 2012.

    The industrial consortium led by Astrium-GmbH (platform and satellite prime) includes a number of core-team partners: Astrium SAS is responsible for the payload instrument and system support activities; Boostec (F) is providing the three-mirror Silicon carbide telescope; CASA (E) is responsible for satellite structural and thermal activities; Jena-Optronik (D) is responsible for the instrument electrical architecture including video signal processing and data compression; Sener (E) is supplying the instrument calibration and shutter mechanism.

    For further information, please contact:

    François Spoto
    GMES Sentinel-2 Project Manager
    Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes
    Tel.: +31 71 565 4509

    Rate this

    Views

    Share

    • Currently 0 out of 5 Stars.
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5
    Rating: 0/5 (0 votes cast)

    Thank you for rating!

    You have already rated this page, you can only rate it once!

    Your rating has been changed, thanks for rating!

    1147
    Tweet
    • Related news
      • Contract signed for ESA’s Sentinel-3 earth observation satellite
        • Space Sentinels: new ‘tools’ in space to improve European environment and security policies
          • Contract signed for building of GMES Sentinel-1 satellite
          • Special features
          • Munich roadmap for GMES services
          • In depth
          • Observing the Earth
            • Copernicus
            • Related links
            • Astrium
    • App Store
    • Subscribe
    • mobile version
    • ESA Observing the Earth Twitter

    @ESA_EO

    • LATEST ARTICLES
    • · Space smash: simulating when satel…
    • · Sentinel-3B on launch pad
    • · Walking on the Moon – underwater
    • · Storm hunter in position
    • · Mars impact crater or supervolcano?
    • FAQ

    • Site Map

    • Contacts

    • Terms and conditions