Division 3.2.1 Space Segment general description

United Kingdom

The dedicated Sentinel missions shall carry a range of technologies, including radar and multispectral imaging instruments for land, ocean and atmospheric monitoring. They shall be developed by ESA and organised into six different mission families.

Sentinel-1 mission: shall comprise a constellation of at least two polar-orbiting satellites to reach Full Operational Capacity (FOC), operating day and night performing C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging, enabling them to acquire imagery regardless of the weather;

Sentinel-2 mission: shall comprise a constellation of at least two two polar-orbiting satellites aiming to monitor variability in land surface conditions supporting the monitoring of changes to vegetation within the growing season;

Sentinel-3 mission: shall comprise a constellation of at least two polar-orbiting satellites with the objective to monitor oceans and land masses globally. Sentinel-3 partim marine shall measure sea surface topography, sea surface temperature, and ocean surface colour to support ocean forecasting systems, environmental monitoring and climate monitoring. Sentinel-3 partim land shall measure land and inland water surface height, land surface temperature and land surface colour;

Sentinel-4 mission: Sentinel-4 shall monitor key air quality trace gases and aerosols over Europe in support of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) at high spatial resolution and with a fast revisit time. Sentinel-4 shall be implemented as part of the Geostationary EUMETSAT Meteosat Third Generation Satellite System. The Sentinel-4 instruments shall be hosted on the EUMETSAT satellites MTG-S-1 (Sentinel-4A) and MTG-S-2 (Sentinel-4B), with an expected 15,5 years of operations for both satellites combined;

Sentinel-5 mission: Sentinel-5 shall provide accurate measurements of key atmospheric constituents such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, formaldehyde, and aerosol properties. Sentinel-5 shall be implemented as part of the EUMETSAT Polar System of Second Generation (EPS-SG). The Sentinel-5 instruments shall be hosted on the EUMETSAT satellites METOP-SG-A-1, METOP-SG-A-2, METOP-SG-A-3 (each with a design lifetime of 7,5 years and hosting Sentinel-5A, -5B, -5C respectively). Sentinel-5p^f1 shall be the precursor mission to Sentinel-5;

Sentinel-6 mission: shall be a radar altimeter mission, with the objective of providing high-precision measurements of global sea-level as a reference altimetry mission. Sentinel-6 shall consist of 2 units (A and B, each with a design lifetime of 5 years) covering 10 years of observations.

Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 shall consist each of 4 satellites, whereby 2 units are needed to reach Full Operational Capacity (FOC) and 2 units shall ensure recurrent observation capacity after the end-of-life of the first 2 units.

The operations of Jason-3 ^f2 shall be included in the Copernicus Space Component to provide continuity of observations between Jason-2 and Sentinel-6 as a reference altimetry mission.

The characteristics of the Copernicus dedicated missions shall be as specified in Table 2.

Table 2

Copernicus Dedicated missions characteristics

Sentinel Mission	Main Characteristic and purpose	Number of Units	Payloads	Satellite orbit	Approximate Period of operations^f3
The period of operations may change depending upon the actual life time of the individual satellite units and evaluation of programmatic options.
Abbreviations: VIS = Visual Range Bands; SWIR = Short Wave Infrared; MWIR = Mid-Wave Infrared; TIR = Thermal Infrared.
Sentinel-1	RADAR Mission	4 units (A, B, C, D), two units are flying in parallel for full capacity	C-Band SAR Payload with centre frequency of 5,405 GHz (4 polarisations) and 4 modes: Strip Map mode with 80 km Swath and 5 × 5 metre spatial resolution Interferometric Wide Swath Mode with 250 km swath and 5 × 20 metre spatial resolution Extra-wide Swath Mode with 400 km swath and 20 × 40 m spatial resolution Wave mode with 5 × 5 metre spatial resolution at 100 km along the orbit	Sun-Synchronous orbit at approximately 693 km	A, B: 2014 – 2022 C, D: 2022-2030
Sentinel-2	High Resolution optical mission for land imaging	4 units (A, B, C, D), two units are flying in parallel for full capacity	— MSI — Multi Spectral Imager with 13 multispectral channels between 400 nm and 2 300 nm, spectral resolution between 1 nm and 180 nm and spatial resolutions of 10 m, 20 m and 60 m. Includes an Optical Communication Payload for mission data relay through EDRS.	Sun-Synchronous orbit at approximately 786 km	A, B: 2015 – 2023 C, D: 2023-2030
Sentinel-3	Global Ocean and Land Imaging	4 units (A, B, C, D), two units are flying in parallel for full capacity	OLCI – Ocean and Land Colour Instrument with 21 bands and spatial resolution of 300 m SLSTR – Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer with 9 bands and spatial resolution of 500 m (VIS, SWIR) and 1 km (MWIR, TIR)^f4 SRAL – SAR Radar Altimeter with dual CX and Ku bands MWR – Microwave Radiometer, with an operation frequency in dual 23,8 GHz and 36,5 GHz	Sun-Synchronous orbit at approximately 814,5 km	A, B: 2016 – 2023 C, D: 2023-2030
Sentinel-4	Atmospheric monitoring	2 instruments (A, B), on board consecutive Meteosat Third Generation – Sounder satellites	The Sentinel-4 instrument is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer (spatial resolution of 8 × 8 km) covering three wavelength bands: Ultraviolet (305-400 nm) Visible (400-500 nm) Near-Infrared (750-775 nm)	On board Meteosat Third Generation Satellites in geostationary orbit at approximately 35 786 km. Coverage of Europe and North Africa with a repeat cycle of about 60 minutes	2022 - 2040
Sentinel-5	Atmospheric monitoring	3 units (A, B, C), on board consecutive METOP Second Generation – A satellites	The Sentinel-5 UVNS instrument is a high resolution spectrometer (spatial resolution about 7 km), covering the following wavelength bands: Ultraviolet (270-370 nm) Visible (370-500 nm) Near-infrared (685-773 nm) Short-wave infrared (1 590-1 675; 2 305-2 385 nm)	Part of the EUMETSAT Polar System of Second Generation (EPS-SG) at approximately 817 km	2022-2040
Sentinel-5p	Atmospheric monitoring	Precursor satellite for Sentinel-5	— TROPOMI — TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument with 4 channels in the following spectral ranges: 270-500 nm, 675-775 nm, 2 305-2 385 nm and spatial resolution of 7 × 7 km	Sun-Synchronous orbit at approximately 824 km	2017 - 2024
Sentinel-6	High Precision Ocean Altimetry	2 units (A, B)	POSEIDON-4 – SAR Radar Altimeter AMRC-C – Climate-quality microwave radiometer, a NOAA/JPL contribution	Non-Sun-synchronous at approximately 1 336 km	A: 2020 – 2025 B: 2025 - 2030

Annotations

Footnotes

f1: The Sentinel-5 Precursor (Sentinel-5p) mission is a joint initiative between ESA and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
f2: Jason-3 is the result from the long-standing cooperation between EUMETSAT, NOAA, CNES and NASA. It is a High Precision Ocean Altimetry Mission that provides continuity between Jason-2 and Sentinel-6 and is operational since 2016 with an envisaged lifetime of 5 years.
f3: The period of operations may change depending upon the actual life time of the individual satellite units and evaluation of programmatic options.
f4: Abbreviations: VIS = Visual Range Bands; SWIR = Short Wave Infrared; MWIR = Mid-Wave Infrared; TIR = Thermal Infrared.