Sentinel is a series of seven missions developed in the
framework of ESA’s Copernicus Earth observation programme. Copernicus is the Global Monitoring
for Environment and Security (GMES) programme, providing accurate, timely and easily accessible
information to improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of
climate change and ensure civil security. Each Sentinel mission is based on a constellation of two
satellites to fulfil revisit and coverage requirements, monitoring different aspects of land, ocean and
atmosphere by applying a range of technologies, such as radar and multi-spectral imaging
instruments. To date the first satellite of Sentinel 1 mission has been launched on 3rd April 2014,
which provides radar observations in Interferometric Wide swath mode (250 km swath and 5 x 20 m
resolution), Wave mode (20 x 20 km data at two different incidence angles every 100 km), and
potentially Stripmap (80 km swath and 5 x 5 m resolution) and Extra Wide Swath (20 x 40 m
resolution) modes.
Mission |
Sentinel-1 |
Sensor |
Microwave radar |
Spacecraft |
Sentinel-1 |
Operational modes |
Strip Map Mode; Interferometric Wide Swath Mode; Extra-wide Swath Mode; Wave Mode. |
Design life |
Min. 7 years |
Orbit |
Near polar sun synchronous 693km; 12-day repeat cycle; 175 revs per cycle. |
Polarisation |
VV/HH for Wave Mode; VV+VH or HH+HV for other modes |