The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite was launched on 5th December 2024 aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
- The launch marked the return of the Italian-built Vega-C launcher, two years after a failure during its debut commercial mission.
- Sentinel-1C builds on the success of its predecessors, delivering high-resolution radar images to monitor Earth’s changing environment.
- It supports various applications, advances scientific research, and adds new capabilities for tracking maritime traffic.
- With 12 Sentinel satellite families, Copernicus is the world’s largest Earth observation system and boasts the largest repository of radar data, according to its developers.
- The Sentinel-1 mission, the first in the family of Copernicus, is based on a constellation of two identical satellites flying in the same orbit but 180° apart, to optimise global coverage and data delivery for Copernicus – the Earth observation component of the EU’s Space Programme.
- Sentinel-1A was the first satellite in the series, launched in April 2014, followed by the launch of Sentinel-1B in 2016.
