Sentinel-2B satellite at ESA’s site in the Netherlands, on 14 November 2016, before being packed up and shipped to French Guiana for its spring launch.
Offering ‘colour vision’ for Europe’s environmental monitoring Copernicus programme, Sentinel-2 combines high-resolution and novel multispectral capabilities to monitor Earth’s changing lands in unprecedented detail and accuracy.
Sentinel-2 is designed as a two-satellite constellation: Sentinel-2A and -2B. Sentinel-2A was launched on 23 June 2015 and has been providing routine imagery for the EU Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, among others. Once Sentinel-2B is launched and operational, the constellation will offer a global revisit every five days.
Information from this mission is helping to improve agricultural practices, monitor the world’s forest, detect pollution in lakes and coastal waters, and contribute to disaster mapping, to name a few.
The satellite was built by an industrial consortium led by prime contractor Airbus Defence and Space in Friedrichshafen, Germany.
Sentinel-2B will be launched in spring 2017 on a Vega rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.