Sentinel-3

Mission Profile

Sentinel-3 is a pair of ESA Copernicus Programme Earth observation satellites, launched beginning on 16 February 2016 aboard Rokot vehicles, designed to monitor ocean topography, sea and land surface temperature, ocean color, and land vegetation with a suite of optical and microwave instruments. The constellation of Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B operates in a tandem orbit configuration to provide global ocean coverage every two days, with the OLCI (Ocean and Land Colour Instrument) providing 21-band imagery from the UV to NIR. Sentinel-3 data supports ocean and coastal monitoring, fisheries management, sea ice analysis, and environmental services within the European Copernicus programme that provides free, open-access Earth observation data to all users worldwide.