Rome 02 March 2017 14:07
At the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany, preparations are at their height for the launch of the Sentinel-2B satellite, part of the Copernicus European Earth Observation programme. The launch is scheduled for March 7 at 2:49 (CET) from Europe's Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
Leonardo, one of the leading industrial partners in Copernicus, is working alongside ESA through its affiliate Telespazio during these delicate phases before the launch into orbit of the programme's fifth environmental "sentinel". The satellite is designed to monitor our planet's health, providing high-resolution optical images of vegetation, land, and water, as well as useful information in case of emergencies.
The engineers of Telespazio VEGA Deutschland, subsidiary of Telespazio, are working to support ESOC's Flight Control team, providing engineering services for the preparation, launch and control of the satellite. Telespazio VEGA Deutschland also provided a simulation service for training the personnel involved in the control of flight operations, and is responsible for developing tools necessary to exploit the data generated by the hyperspectral sensor (MSI) on board the satellite.
The role of Telespazio will not end when the satellite is put into orbit: the company, which contributes to the development of the ground segment and operations of Copernicus, collaborates (through its subsidiaries e-GEOS, GAF and Telespazio VEGA UK) with emergency management, land and sea safety, and climate change monitoring, providing the programme with data from the COSMO-SkyMed and IRS satellites.
In particular, the e-GEOS Matera Space Centre is one of the three stations of the Copernicus Core Ground Segment, and it receives the radar and optical data acquired by the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions.