Placing Sentinel-3C on the dolly

Following its arrival at Pariacabo harbour in Kourou, French Guiana, the third satellite in the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission, Sentinel-3C, has been unpacked from its container, which kept it protected throughout its two-week voyage from France across the Atlantic Ocean to South America. 

The satellite was then integrated onto a ‘dolly’ – a specialised cart that safely moves and turns the spacecraft in various positions, allowing the engineers to access different parts of the satellite during launch preparations.

Like its two siblings in orbit, Sentinel-3C carries a suite of cutting-edge instruments that measure 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.