ESA - Sentinel-3 - Archive

ESA title

The mission

Carrying a suite of cutting-edge instruments, Copernicus Sentinel-3 measures systematically Earth’s oceans, land, ice and atmosphere to monitor and understand large-scale global dynamics. It provides essential information in near-real time for ocean and weather forecasting.

The launch

Date: Sentinel-3A on 16 February 2016
Sentinel-3B on 25 April 2018
Sentinel-3C in 2026
Site: Sentinel-3A and -B from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia
Sentinel-3C from Europe's Spaceport, French Guiana
Launcher: Sentinel-3A and -B on Rockot
Sentinel-3C on Vega-C

4 instruments
7 years mission life
815 km orbit altitude

Sentinel-3

Sea state

Satellites reveal the power of ocean swell

08/10/2025 5460 views 57 likes

Iberian fires August 2025

Iberian wildfires seen from space

20/08/2025 11173 views 64 likes

Trends in Arctic sea ice thickness from 2011–2025

Sea ice lows high on the agenda

24/06/2025 1832 views 22 likes

Global sea surface temperature

Sea surface warming faster than expected

17/04/2025 6950 views 59 likes

Protecting areas of the Atlantic Ocean from human activity

Protecting ocean biodiversity with satellite data

15/04/2025 2074 views 31 likes

Adriatic Bloom

How marine heatwaves impact phytoplankton and ocean health

31/10/2024 2097 views 33 likes

Arctic diatoms

Will climate change turn the Arctic green?

18/06/2024 3419 views 10 likes

Smoke from fires in Canada

Canada’s wildfire season begins

16/05/2024 2744 views 13 likes

Full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager

10 ways Earth is interconnected

22/04/2024 4694 views 17 likes

Sentinel-5P detected methane plumes

Trio of Sentinel satellites map methane super-emitters

20/09/2023 39077 views 152 likes

Worldwide fires from ESA’s World Fire Atlas

Counting wildfires across the globe

03/08/2023 40387 views 105 likes

Heatwave across Europe

Europe braces for sweltering July

13/07/2023 109404 views 213 likes

Sea-surface temperature January to mid-May 2023

Our oceans are in hot water

17/05/2023 10808 views 107 likes

France and Spain land-surface temperature

Feeling the heat from space

20/07/2022 13940 views 139 likes

Greenland ice sheet melt

Historic Greenland ice sheet rainfall unravelled

25/05/2022 8233 views 113 likes

A-68A’s position on 17 December

Mega iceberg released 152 billion tonnes of freshwater

20/01/2022 11671 views 82 likes

Baltic Sea from Copernicus Sentinel-3

New satellite data techniques reveal coastal sea-level rise

07/07/2021 16083 views 112 likes

Ocean acidification

Satellites highlight a 30-year rise in ocean acidification

21/04/2021 8484 views 92 likes

Mount Etna smoke plumes

Satellites monitor Mount Etna’s unpredictable behaviour

08/04/2021 18293 views 102 likes

A-68A and A-68G

Is this the end of the A-68A iceberg?

03/02/2021 20570 views 102 likes

Wetlands

Earth observation vital in monitoring wetland waters

02/02/2021 6449 views 89 likes

Area burned by fire in August 2019

New long-term dataset to analyse global fire trends

26/01/2021 7578 views 70 likes

A-68A iceberg loses chunk of ice

Giant A-68A iceberg loses chunk of ice

18/12/2020 11572 views 127 likes

Start of Vendée Globe 2020

Copernicus satellites keep eyes on icebergs for Vendée Globe

02/12/2020 5202 views 51 likes

Between fire and hurricane

US West Coast on fire

18/09/2020 8455 views 84 likes

Industrial emissions of carbon dioxide fuel our warming climate

Providing the facts to help Europe achieve 55%

16/09/2020 3798 views 48 likes

Captured on 11 August by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission, this image shows Eureka in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

Monitoring the Arctic heatwave

27/08/2020 7168 views 115 likes

Working on Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich

Building satellites amid COVID-19

04/05/2020 4441 views 53 likes

Burned area near Chernobyl site

Mapping Chernobyl fires from space

16/04/2020 19754 views 90 likes

Water management key for sustainable agriculture

Satellites and machine learning for water management

09/04/2020 10697 views 87 likes

Smoke over New South Wales, Australia, from Copernicus Sentinel-3

Australia: like a furnace

09/01/2020 14657 views 140 likes

Fires around the world

Is Earth on fire?

25/10/2019 24072 views 110 likes

Sea roughness key to carbon flux

Can oceans turn the tide on the climate crisis?

08/10/2019 11787 views 217 likes

Wildfires in Brazil

Fires ravage the Amazon

27/08/2019 17044 views 146 likes

Sargassum in Guadeloupe

Washed up: Sargassum blankets beaches

30/07/2019 12792 views 126 likes

Ice streams named

Antarctic glaciers named after satellites

07/06/2019 5243 views 60 likes

Greenland snow grain and albedo

Snow grain size – it matters

29/05/2019 7098 views 89 likes

Floods imaged by Copernicus Sentinel-1

Copernicus Sentinel-1 maps floods in wake of Idai

20/03/2019 14433 views 111 likes

Cloud-free Europe

New observations for the new economy

08/03/2019 10702 views 89 likes

Losing ice

Greenland ice loss quickening

06/12/2018 8330 views 131 likes

Regional sea-level trends

Spotlight on sea-level rise

25/09/2018 16220 views 97 likes

Lake Maggiore and Baveno

Copernicus 20 years on

21/06/2018 6066 views 93 likes

Tandem in images

Sentinel-3 flies tandem

19/06/2018 9090 views 109 likes

Antarctic sunset from Sentinel-3B

Copernicus Sentinel-3B delivers first images

09/05/2018 23080 views 154 likes

Seventh Sentinel satellite launched for Copernicus

25/04/2018 12214 views 86 likes

Enabling & Support

ESA teams ready for space

24/04/2018 4587 views 61 likes

Into the tower

Sentinel-3B on launch pad

23/04/2018 8875 views 77 likes

Fuelling Sentinel-3B

Sentinel-3B fully tanked

13/04/2018 2975 views 37 likes

Unveiling Sentinel-3B

Sentinel-3B launch preparations in full swing

23/03/2018 7514 views 65 likes

Safeguarding our most precious resource: water

22/03/2018 7522 views 101 likes

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