The European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus Defence and Space is developing the sixth Sentinel satellite to survey changes in ocean levels around the world.
ESA Sentinel will record ocean levels
The European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus Defence and Space is developing the sixth Sentinel satellite to survey changes in ocean levels around the world.
The two parties recently signed an agreement valued at $199M at an international symposium in Berlin. According to reports, the deal is for the creation of the Jason-CS / Sentinel-6A Satellite as part of the European Commission’s (EC) Copernicus Program aimed at collecting information on Earth’s environment.
“Jason-CS / Sentinel-6 will be the reference mission to continue the measurements for sea-level rise. These measurements are crucial to our understanding of the effects that global warming has on our oceans,” said ESA Director of Earth Observation Volker Liebig.
The agreement also includes the option of developing a sister satellite called Sentinel-6B, which could be activated once the program subscription with the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) is completed.
Dr. Michael Menking, the head of Airbus Defence and Space’s Earth Observation, Navigation & Science division, said the Sentinel-6A Satellite program highlights the company’s leading expertise in Earth observation satellites.
The Sentinel-6A mission will launch in 2020, with the primary objective of ensuring the continuity of a data set that began in 1992. It will carry on the survey currently being conducted by the Sentinel-3 mission and the CryoSat Satellite.
