The Copernicus program is a venture run by the European Union (EU) and European Space Agency (ESA) that builds and manages a fleet of Earth-observing satellites known as Sentinel. Eight missions have been launched to this point, offering knowledge about adjustments occurring to the oceans, land and atmosphere of our planet.
Copernicus was created in 1998 when EU officers signed the Baveno Manifesto, a doc proposing that Europe play a significant position in dealing with worldwide environmental and local weather points, in Baveno, Italy, according to a history from the EU. The program was initially often known as Global Monitoring for Environmental Security (GMES) and was supposed to supply data that might assist humanitarian support, peacekeeping duties, and border surveillance, together with environmental considerations.
In 2004, ESA agreed to create a space-based part of GMES that would come with the Sentinel household of satellites. The program was renamed Copernicus in 2011 after the Renaissance-era Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus who first proposed that the Earth orbited across the sun, in line with the program’s website, which writes this concerning the determination:
“Copernicus opened man to an infinite universe, previously limited by the rotation of the planets and the sun around the Earth, and created an understanding of a world without borders. Humanity was able to benefit from his insight. This set in motion a spirit of discovery through scientific research, which allowed us to understand better the world we live in.”
ESA deployed the primary Sentinel satellite, Sentinel-1A, in 2014 to repeatedly create radar photos of our planet’s floor. Other satellites within the Copernicus program take high-resolution pictures of land, present air high quality knowledge, and measure the composition of our ambiance, in line with an overview from the agency.
The most up-to-date Sentinel, Sentinel-6A, was launched in 2020. It supplies extraordinarily exact measurements of sea degree rise throughout the globe.
Data from Copernicus is supplied freely to scientists all around the world. The program value €3.24 billion ($3.83 billion) between 2014 and 2021, according to ESA.
Here we check out every of the Sentinel missions individually.
Sentinel-1
This mission consists of two satellites, Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B, each of which orbit from pole to pole across the Earth taking radar photos of our planet day and evening and through every kind of climate, according to ESA. The two satellites orbit on reverse sides of the Earth, masking the whole planet each 12 days, according to the company.
Sentinel-1A launched in 2014, adopted by Sentinel-1B in 2016. Both satellites rode a Russian Soyuz rocket to orbit from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana throughout their launches. Sentinel-1A was hit by a millimeter-size particle — maybe a bit of space particles — in 2016 that triggered a sudden small energy discount, although the satellite continued to function usually afterwards.
Each Sentinel-1A satellite is about 11.2 toes (3.4 meters) lengthy and weighs round 5,070 lbs. (2,300 kilograms), according to ESA.
Sentinel-2
Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B are twin satellites that launched in 2015 and 2017, respectively, atop Vega rockets from Europe’s spaceport close to Kourou, French Guiana. Each satellite captures high-resolution photos of our planet, serving to officers monitor the world’s forests, adjustments in agricultural cowl and different land-based actions.
Both Sentinel-2 craft are about 11.2 ft (3.4 m) lengthy and weigh 2,513 lbs. (1,140 kg). The two satellites orbit from pole to pole, separated by 180 levels alongside their orbital path, which permits the pair to maximise their protection of Earth
Related: Vega rocket launches Europe’s newest Earth ‘Sentinel’ satellite
In 2018, Sentinel-2A captured a glimpse of a rare snowfall within the northwest a part of the Sahara Desert throughout a winter storm, the place some areas had been coated in as much as 15 inches (40 centimeters) of snow. And each Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites have been used to look at enormous icebergs break off from Antarctica.
Sentinel-3
The Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B satellites launched to orbit in 2016 and 2018, each utilizing the Russian Rockot rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Like Sentinels 1 and a couple of, the Sentinel-3 probes are in polar orbits, and monitor a wide range of Earth processes, together with sea floor top, sea ice temperatures, ocean floor wind speeds, atmospheric aerosols, vegetation on land, and snow and ice protection on land, in line with the Copernicus program.
The Sentinel-3 satellites are every 12.8 ft (3.9 m) lengthy and weigh 2,535 lbs. (1,150 kg). Over the years, the mission has captured essential knowledge about hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean in addition to wildfires in Siberia and the aerosols they produced.
Sentinel-5
Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 are upcoming missions that may monitor atmospheric composition, however neither has launched but, according to ESA. In the meantime, the company launched the Sentinel-5P satellite, a precursor to trace international air air pollution and make detailed maps of air high quality around the globe each 24 hours, in 2017 utilizing a Russian Rockot launch automobile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
Sentinel-5P is 4.6 ft (1.4 m) lengthy and weighs 2,160 lbs. (980 kg), in line with an informational website for the Copernicus program. The satellite was one in all a number of that recorded drops in emissions around the globe throughout the coronavirus outbreak in 2020.
Sentinel-6
The Sentinel-6 mission will finally include two satellites, the primary of which, Sentinel-6A, launched in 2020 utilizing a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. A collaboration with NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Sentinel-6A is also referred to as the Jason CS satellite, and was renamed in honor of oceanographer Michael Freilich, the previous head of NASA’s Earth Science division.
Sentinel-6A is makes use of a radar altimeter to monitor global sea-surface height alterations associated to local weather change with unprecedented accuracy. It is 16.7 ft (5.1 m) lengthy and weighs 2,628 lbs. (1,192 kg). The Sentinel-6B satellite will be part of its companion in 2025, according to NASA.
Future missions
The EU is finding out six extra high-priority future missions as a part of the Copernicus program, which might plug present monitoring gaps and take a look at vegetation, floor temperatures, polar ice, carbon dioxide ranges and sea-surface salinity, amongst different issues, according to ESA.
