The European Space Agency has ordered two more satellites for the continuation of the Copernicus Earth-observation programme.
ESA has contracted a consortium of 60 European companies lead by the Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer Thales Alenia Space to build two additional Sentinel satellites for the programme, in an agreement worth €400 million. The satellites will extend the Sentinel component of Copernicus until at least the end of 2020, Volker Liebig, ESA’s director of Earth-observation programmes, said in a statement.
The first Sentinel satellite, Sentinel-1A, launched in April 2014 and has been used to monitor processes such as changes in the polar ice caps, ground movements and volcanic eruptions. It will be joined by Sentinel-1B in April 2016, and then the newly-contracted Sentinels-1C and 1D.
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