Sentinel 2

Sentinel 2

The GMES Sentinel-2 earth observation mission developed by ESA will provide continuity to services relying on multi-spectral high-resolution optical observations over global terrestrial surfaces . Sentinel-2 will capitalize on the technology and the vast experience acquired in Europe and the US to sustain the operational supply of data for services such as forest monitoring, land cover changes detection or natural disasters management.

The Sentinel-2 mission will offer an unprecedented combination of the following capabilities:

• Multi-spectral information with 13 bands in the visible, near infra-red and short wave infra-red part of the spectrum;
• Systematic global coverage of land surfaces : from 56°South to 84°North, coastal waters and all Mediterranean sea;
• High revisit: every 5 days at equator under the same viewing conditions;
• High spatial resolution: 10m, 20m and 60m;
• Wide field of view: 290 km.

Frequent revisits and high mission availability require two identical Sentinel-2 satellites operating simultaneously, which dictates a small, cost-effective and low-risk satellite. The orbit is Sun-synchronous at 786 km altitude (14+3/10 revolutions per day) with a 10:30 a.m. descending node. This local time was selected as the best compromise between minimizing cloud cover and ensuring a suitable Sun illumination. It is close to the Landsat local time and matches SPOT’s, allowing the seamless combination of Sentinel-2 data with historical images to build long-term time series. The two satellites will work on opposite sides of the orbit. The launch of the first satellite unit is expected in 2014.