ESA

The Sentinel-3A satellite, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), has been launched successfully into space from the launch pad of Plesetsk in Russia.

Russian-built Rockot launcher vehicle has placed the 1150kg Sentinel-3A satellite into its planned orbit, 815km above Earth.

The satellite is a part of Europe’s earth-observing Copernicus programme.

" This marks a new era for the Copernicus Services, with Sentinel-3 providing a whole range of new data with unprecedented coverage of the oceans."

Sentinel-3A carried with it four earth-observing instruments to monitor earth’s oceans and land.

Around 92 minutes after the launch, Sentinel-3A sent its first signal to the Kiruna station, located in Sweden.

Following the completion of three days of early orbit phase, the controllers on the ground will start checking the health of the satellite elements and then adjust the instruments to commission the satellite, in order to start operations in five months.

ESA director general Jan Woerner said: "With the successful launch of Sentinel-3 we are now looking forward to how our teams of experts will steer this mission into its operational life, like they have done the first two satellites of the series."

The latest launch is the third of six families that forms the heart of Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring network, which aims to provide data to monitor the environment and support civil security activities.

Sentinel-3A expects to measure the temperature, colour and height of the sea surface, and also the thickness of sea ice.

The satellite also monitors wildfires, maps the usage of land, checks vegetation health, and measures the height of rivers and lakes.

ESA earth observation programmes director Volker Liebig said: "This is the third of the Sentinel satellites launched in the less than two years, and it is certainly a special moment.

"It also marks a new era for the Copernicus Services, with Sentinel-3 providing a whole range of new data with unprecedented coverage of the oceans."

The ESA plans to launch the twin Sentinel-3A, named Sentinel-3B, next year.

A Thales Alenia Space-led consortium of about 100 companies have designed and built the satellites required for the mission.

The first satellite of the Copernicus programme, Sentinel-1A, a radar imaging satellite, was launched in 2014.

Image: Sentinel-3A has been launched successfully. Photo: courtesy of ESA