First Satellite Images from Sentinel-2 Delivered

Four days after its launch, the first images from Sentinel-2 have been delivered.  Covering an area from central Europe and the Mediterranean, ending in Algeria, images from the satellite is part of the Copernicus environmental monitoring program.  Designed as a twin satellite system, Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2b (which will launch in 2016) will provide high resolution optical images as part of the five satellite Sentinel mission.  The Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes, Volker Liebig, commented, “Sentinel-2 will enable us to provide data for the programme’s land monitoring services and will be the base for a wide spectrum of applications reaching from agriculture to forestry, environmental monitoring to urban planning.”  The first satellite in the mission, Sentinel-1A currently captures all-weather, day and night radar images.

The satellite’s imager contains 13 bands covering visible and the near infrared to the shortwave infrared a varying resolutions.  The earth observation satellite is also able to capture three bands in the “red edge” which is important for sensing information on vegetations states.  The first images from the satellite showed a range of landscapes capture at 10 meter resolution such as the urban areas of Milan, Italy to the French Riviera.

The European Space Agency will be providing free and open access to data from all of the Sentinel satellites.

More: Sentinel-2 Delivers First Images – European Space Agency