Europe recently announced the launch of the first satellite as part of the Copernicus Earth observation project.
The initiative was developed to help gather images in case of a natural disaster or a plane crash. The Copernicus project was funded by the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA) with an allocated budget of €8.4 billion to last until 2020. ESA describes Copernicus as the most ambitious project to observe disasters on Earth so far and is designed to help acquire data to aid policymakers in creating legislation in lieu of environmental degradation.
The launch sent the Sentinel-1a satellite to the Earth's orbit ay 5:02pm., ET. The satellite will be used to observe land use, oil spills, sea ice, and will also be tapped to help in planning emergency response initiatives in case of earthquakes and floods. The Sentinel 1-a is equipped with a radar antenna measuring 12 meters in length and a couple of solar panels measuring 10 meters long each.
"The Sentinels will keep a watchful eye on our planet," ESA director of human spaceflight and operations and head of the ESA's satellite control center ESOC Thomas Reiter told Reuters during the launch which took place at Darmstadt, Germany.
The start of the Copernicus project became urgent after the ESA lost contact with Envisat, an Earth observation satellite in 2012. Envisat has been in space for 10 years.
"The big step forward is that we can now cover every place on Earth every three to six days.This used to take much longer with Envisat. If you want to use images for disaster management support or to find a plane, then you want the images to be as fresh as possible," director of ESA's Earth Observation program, Volker Liebig told Reuters.
Aside from observing natural disasters, the project also allows the images to be downloaded for free. Companies can use this resource to help them educate farmers about the trends of pest infestation, soil moisture, risks of floods and fires, and other important considerations.
