ESA's Sentinel-3 Earth Observation Satellite

The European Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space have signed a €305 million contract to provide the first Sentinel-3 earth observation satellite, devoted to oceanography and land-vegetation monitoring, as part of the European GMES programme. As prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space is responsible for the satellite's design, development and integration.

Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) aims at delivering environment and security monitoring services and is being led by the European Commission. ESA is responsible for the implementation of the GMES Space Component, a package of earth observation missions involving ESA, EU/ESA Member States and other partners. Central elements of this Space Component are the five families of Sentinel missions.

Sentinel-3 will provide crucial data for information services to the European Union and its Member States as part of GMES. The services to be fed data cover areas such as climate change, sustainable development, environmental policies, European civil protection, development aid, humanitarian aid and the European Common Foreign & Security Policy.

The Sentinel-3 mission will produce a consistent, long-term set of remotely-sensed marine and land data for (operational) ocean state analysis, forecasting and service provision. A comprehensive measurement system facilitating global ocean and land observation is required in order to provide data for advanced numerical forecasting models.

Sentinel-3 will determine parameters such as sea surface topography, sea/land surface temperature, ocean colour and land colour with high-end accuracy and reliability. For this purpose, it carries an advanced radar altimeter and a multi-channel optical imaging instrument.

To achieve near-global coverage and meet all scientific requirements, Sentinel-3 will be placed in a high-inclination, sun-synchronous polar orbit. Near-realtime data processing and delivery will allow operational services to continuously profit from the mission.