Replay of the Sentinel-1B launch coverage from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The second satellite in the Sentinel-1 mission lifted off on a Soyuz rocket on 25 April 2016 at 21:02 GMT (23:02 CEST) to provide ‘radar vision’ of Earth for Europe’s environmental Copernicus monitoring programme.

As well as liftoff and acquisition of the signal indicating that Sentinel-1B has been delivered into orbit safely, the coverage also includes talks by experts highlighting the goals and benefits of this second Sentinel-1 satellite. Sentinel-1B joins its identical twin, Sentinel-1A, in orbit to deliver information for numerous services, from monitoring ice in polar seas to tracking land subsidence, and for responding to disasters such as floods.

The launch of Sentinel-1B also provided an opportunity to give other smaller satellites a ride into space: three CubeSats developed by university students through ESA’s ‘Fly Your Satellite!’ programme and Microscope from the French space agency, CNES.