28 February
2002: On 28 February 2002, ESA's Envisat satellite was launched.
Envisat was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at 22:07 hrs Kourou time.
Built by a consortium of 50 companies led by Astrium, Envisat was the successor to ESA's ERS satellites. With an array of ten instruments to monitor land, oceans, atmosphere and ice caps, it provided the most complete set of observations ever achieved, to help scientists understand how changes affect our climate.
