Sentinel (satellite)

Sentinel is a series of future space missions currently being developed by ESA under the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security(GMES) programme. The Sentinel missions include radar and super-spectral imaging for land, ocean and atmospheric monitoring.

The Sentinel missions will have the following objectives:

• Sentinel 1 will provide all-weather, day and night radar imaging for land and ocean services. The first Sentinel-1 satellite is planned for launch in 2013;
• Sentinel 2 will provide high-resolution optical imaging for land services (e.g. imagery of vegetation, soil and water cover, inland waterways and coastal areas). Sentinel-2 will also provide information for emergency services. The first Sentinel-2 satellite is planned for launch at the end of 2012;
• Sentinel 3 will provide ocean and global land monitoring services. The first Sentinel-3 satellite is planned for launch at the end of 2012;
• Sentinel-4, embarked as a payload upon a Meteosat Third Generation Satellite, will provide data for atmospheric composition monitoring. It will be launched in 2017;
• Sentinel-5 will also provide data for atmospheric composition monitoring. It will be embarked on a post-EUMETSAT Polar System(EPS) spacecraft and launched in 2019;
• Sentinel-6 is the intent to sustain high precision altimetry missions following the Jason-2 satellite.

External links

• Sentinel page on ESA website

References