EU Launches Sentinel Satellite to Map Earth's Surface with Radar for Disaster Response

Under the European Union's new multi-billion-euro Earth-observation program, the European Space Agency launched its first rocket last night, the Sentinel-1A satellite, from French Guiana.

Europe's 7.5 billion Euro Copernicus program is a mission to care for various aspects of the Earth's environment. For example, the Sentinel-1A is carrying advanced radar that will be used to scan the Earth's surface in all weather conditions during both day and night. The program's goal is to detect and track oil spills, sea ice, movement in land surfaces, and map changes in the way land is used.

The 2.3-ton Sentinel-1A satellite was taken into space by a Soyuz rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana last night. The satellite safely separated from the rocket after reaching an altitude of 600km in 23 minutes. When in orbit, the Sentinel-1 will communicate with controllers at the ESA's operation center in Darmstadt, Germany and provide eight terabytes of data daily regarding the Earth's surface.

"Once all the Sentinel satellites have been launched, the Copernicus programme will be the most efficient and fullest Earth-observation programme in the world," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, in this BBC News article. "Many skilled jobs have been created and many more are yet to come."

One of the key uses of the satellite will be disaster response. Its radar will be efficient at detecting the magnitude of flood waters and assessing damage done following a major earthquakes. The speed at which it will communicate the information back to Earth will be extremely fast thanks to its laser-based data-relay system.

Five other satellites will be launched into orbit after the Sentinel 1-A by 2019. Sentinel 1-B will be launched next year, followed by 1-C and 1-D when 1-A and 1-B are beginning to run their course. The EU and the ESA believe that this program will begin a new era in Earth observation.

Four countries were closely involved with Sentinel 1-A's development: Thales Alenia Space constructed the satellite (Italy/France) and Airbus developed the satellite's C-band radar instrument and other electronics (Germany/UK).

To read more about the Sentinel 1-A satellite as well as the Copernicus Program, visit this BBC News article and this ABC News article.