ESA celebrates successful launch of Sentinel 1-B

ESA celebrates successful launch of Sentinel 1-B

By Robert Hackwill

Europe has a new eye in sky and it is all about making life safer for all of us says the European Space Agency.

The Sentinel 1-B is packed with the latest technology and blasted off on board a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana without a hitch.

It is the latest component in the Copernicus Earth environmental monitoring programme.

“There are a lot of applications which have to do for example with detecting landslides, inundations, or ground movements. This brings me also to the emergency services, we support all these type of emergencies. When there is an earthquake we can make maps of the ground movements, before and after. We can look at icemaps for drifting ice which might endanger shipping. Oil spills can be observed very well with radar,” says ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes Volker Liebig.

Sentinel can peer down through thick clouds, see though ice, and provide highly accurate 3D maps that will be of help to sailors, farmers, animal herders, firefighters, weather forecasters and rescue workers.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-04-23