Today Starion is celebrating the successful launch by the European Space Agency (ESA) of the Sentinel-2C satellite – the third spacecraft to be launched as part of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, which provides high resolution colour imagery of the Earth. Experts from Starion provide professional engineering services to ESA for Sentinel-2, including Project Support Lead and Mission Planning Services roles for Sentinel-2C.
The Sentinel-2C satellite was successfully launched today from Kourou in French Guiana to replace Sentinel-2A in the dual satellite Sentinel-2 constellation. Starion’s experts have been providing a range of engineering services up to and during today’s launch, and will continue to play leading roles for the mission during the remainder of the launch and early orbit phase (LEOP) and the subsequent commissioning and routine phases.
The launch marked the final flight of the original version of the Vega rocket.
What is Sentinel-2?
Sentinel-2 is a multispectral imaging mission of the Copernicus programme, part of the European Union’s Space programme. It provides high resolution data on vegetation, soil and water cover for land, inland waterways and coastal areas. It also provides atmospheric absorption and distortion data corrections. Data collected by the Sentinel-2 satellites is being used for a wide range of applications, including precision farming, water quality monitoring, natural disaster management and methane emissions detection.
Once in orbit, Sentinel-2C will fly in tandem with -2A for a short period to enable engineers to perform cross-calibration activities before the older satellite is moved into a different orbit. In the future, Sentinel-2D is set to replace Sentinel-2B. Along with the planned Sentinel-2 Next Generation satellites, this will ensure data continuity beyond 2035.
Starion’s support for Sentinel-2
The Project Support Lead for Team A during the pre-launch simulations and the 3-day LEOP is Starion’s Bogdan Teianu, who has worked on the Sentinel-2 mission since 2009 until his dedicated involvement in ESA’s satellite engineering team preparing for Sentinel-2C and -2D units. One of his key roles was the supervision of the development of the optical communications payload – a laser communications system that is able to transmit satellite data to the ground via an intersatellite link with a geostationary satellite.
In response to the news of the successful launch, Bogdan commented: “My involvement in Sentinel-2C is unusual because few people work on the same mission for so many years. During that time, I’ve worked in different areas, including ground systems and communications, which is one of the reasons I can provide the support that’s needed during launch and LEOP.”
After working on this for so long, I feel very proud today, not just for me but also for my teammates. I’m proud of the success of the whole Sentinel-2 mission, which has been working so well and provided useful data for so many applications – it’s the most downloaded mission in ESA for Copernicus.
Another key role for the Sentinel-2 mission is the role of Mission Planner as part of the Sentinels Mission Planning Service operations. The role is fulfilled by Starion’s Simone Cannuccia and Mario Sansone together with teams from GMV and Alia Space companies
Simone has also worked on the Sentinel-2 mission for a long time: “I’ve worked on Sentinel-2 since before the launch of the first satellite in the constellation, which allows me to provide a lot of value to the project. I’ve followed the different phases, from design onwards, including the validation phase which started last December, and work closely with engineers from across various ESA sites. The whole team has put so much energy into this, in particular before the launch, so the success today gives value to what we’ve been doing previously.”
The successful launch is important for the scientific community because this mission can not only monitor land use for tracking changes in agriculture and so on, but recently it started providing support in monitoring air pollution. We still have a busy time ahead during the 3-month commissioning phase, but I’m already very proud of our new addition to the Sentinel-2 family – it’s just like having a third baby!
Main image: credit ESA/ArianeGroup/Arianespace/CNES
