The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The Copernicus Sentinel-6 mission builds on heritage from the French–US Jason series, ESA’s CryoSat and the Copernicus Sentinel-3 missions. Developed by ESA, the main instrument is the Poseidon-4 dual-frequency (C-band and Ku-band) radar altimeter. It improves on precision and stability of the radar altimeters on the Jason series and also inherits a high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mode from CryoSat and Copernicus Sentinel-3, but with a design that allows synthetic aperture radar and low-resolution modes to deliver data simultaneously.
An advanced microwave radiometer, provided by NASA, supports Poseidon-4. Water vapour in the atmosphere affects the speed of the altimeter’s radar pulses – and therefore estimates of sea-surface height. The advanced microwave radiometer accounts this water vapour to ensure that measurements are accurate.
The satellites also carry a precise orbit determination package, including a GPS receiver and a laser retroreflector.