Seventh launch success for Soyuz from the Guiana Space Centre : Sentinel-1A in orbit

Thursday 3 April, Soyuz completed a flawless launch from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG), Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, placing the Sentinel-1A Earth-observation satellite into orbit.

Sentinel-1A is the first satellite of the European Union’s Copernicus programme, the space segment of which is co-funded by the member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission. Its objective is to give Europe an independent capability to acquire and manage environmental data about our planet.

Sentinel-1A is carrying a radar instrument called C-SAR (Circular Synthetic Aperture Radar) designed to acquire day/night, all-weather Earth imagery. It will be one of a constellation of two satellites, Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B, that will scan the Earth’s surface every six days. Its data will be downlinked to ground stations across the globe to ensure very rapid delivery. The satellite was built by prime contractor Thales Alenia Space in Italy and Airbus Defence & Space supplied the C-SAR radar instrument. Sentinel-1A had a launch mass of 2,150 kg and its estimated service lifetime is seven years.

On the occasion of the launch, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall hailed this new accomplishment for Soyuz, its seventh successful launch from the CSG since 2011: “The CSG, one of CNES’s four centres of excellence, has once again pulled off the remarkable performance of orbiting two different systems within 12 days. I would like to congratulate our partners, the Roscosmos and Russian industry teams, those at ESA, Arianespace and Starsem, and all who helped to make this launch a success. For CNES, which has built all the launch complexes in French Guiana, and in particular those for Soyuz, this latest success is an extra source of satisfaction. Sentinel-1A is the first satellite of the Copernicus programme to which France is making a major contribution through the European Union and ESA, and the data it acquires are set to revolutionize the way we see our environment.”

CNES press contacts

Alain Delrieu Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 74 04 alain.delrieu@cnes.fr
Pascale Bresson Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 75 39 pascale.bresson@cnes.fr
Julien Watelet Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 78 37 julien.watelet@cnes.fr

www.cnes.fr/presse

CP044-2014 - Succès VS 07.pdf (pdf - 243.86 KB)