Sentinel-1 on Soyuz

The first satellite dedicated to Europe’s ambitious Copernicus environmental monitoring programme was launched on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana.

Sentinel-1 carries an advanced radar to image Earth’s surface through cloud and rain, regardless of whether it is day or night. Delivering vital information for numerous operational services, from monitoring ice in the polar oceans to tracking land subsidence, Sentinel-1 is set to play a key role in the largest civil Earth-observation programme ever conceived. The Sentinel-1 mission comprises a constellation of two identical satellites.