The Sentinel-2 mission is a land monitoring constellation of two satellites that provide high resolution optical imagery and provide continuity for the current SPOT and Landsat missions.

The mission provides a global coverage of the Earth's land surface every 10 days with one satellite and 5 days with 2 satellites, making the data of great use in on-going studies.

The satellites are equipped with the state-of-the-art MSI (Multispectral Imager) instrument, that offers high-resolution optical imagery.

Launch date:

Sentinel-2A - 23 June 2015
Sentinel-2B - 07 March 2017

Operational lifespan: 7.25 years (with consumables for 12)

Mission Objectives:

• Land observation, including: Vegetation, soil and water cover, inland waterways and coastal areas
• Land use and change detection maps
• Providing support in generating land cover
• Disaster relief support
• Climate change monitoring

Mission orbit:

Orbit Height: 786 km
Orbit Type: Sun-synchronous
Inclination: 98.5o
Repeat cycle: 10 days with one satellite and 5 days with 2 satellites

Payload:
MSI (Multispectral Imager)

Resolution and Swath Width: 290 km - 10 m, 20 m and 60 m spatial resolution

Configuration:
The spacecraft is equipped with a deployable solar array and the dimensions of the craft are: 3.4 m x 1.8 m x 2.35 m with a weight (at time of launch) of 1100 kg.

Launch vehicle:

Vega rocket (Sentinel-2A)
Rockot vehicle (Sentinel-2B)

Ad interim operator: ESA

Data processing:

• Level 1 - A - Radiometric corrections
• Level 1 - B - Geometric corrections
• Level 2 - A - Cloud screening
• Level 2 - B - Atmospheric corrections
• Level 2 - C - Geophysical variables retrieval algorithms
• Level 3 - Simulation of cloud corrections

Contractors:

Astrium Germany has been prime contracted to construct the Sentinel-2 satellite and leads a consortium with core partners:

• Astrium France is providing the MSI payload
• Boostec is providing the three-mirror Silicon carbide telescope and the instrument baseplate
• Jena-Optronik is responsible for the 2 Video Compression Units (VCU)
• Sener is supplying the instrument Calibration and Shutter Mechanism (CSM).