Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program just got the go-ahead with a €270 (US$371) million Thales Alenia Space contract to Sentinel satellites, in a European Commission and ESA partnership.
GMES Environment and Security (GMES) program is designed to monitor the environment, understand the effects of climate change, and ensure civil security. GMES integrates satellite data and ground based information for the benefit Europe and the international community.
In total, five satellite families called Sentinels will be developed. Each Sentinel mission has a two-satellite constellation. Three satellites are already under construction, with the Sentinel-1 set to launch in 2012, and a new contract to procure the second Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-3 satellites.
"GMES represents a €2.2 (US$3) billion investment in key space infrastructure. This is not only an extraordinary undertaking, but also an extraordinary responsibility," said Mr Liebig ESA's director of Earth Observation Programmes.
Sentinel-1 carries a C-band imaging radar to provide GMES imagery. It will monitor Arctic sea-ice extent, routine sea-ice mapping, surveillance of the marine environment including oil-spill monitoring, mapping of land for motion risks, forest, water and soil management, and mapping in support of humanitarian aid.
Sentinel-3 carries several GMES payloads to monitor the oceans, including ocean-surface wave information, surface temperature, and data to improve ocean current forecasting systems, seawater quality and pollution monitoring. It will also monitor land-use change, forest cover, photosynthetic activity, soil quality and fire detection.
Visit: http://www.gmes.info/
Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specializing in renewable energy, power grid modeling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites. He is the author of the Eco-Geek blog.
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