Example impression of Sentinel-2. Image courtesy of ESA. Copyright ESA/ATG medialab.
This week were are looking at the latest Earth Observation (EO) satellite in orbit, together with a couple of exciting launches that are coming up in the near future.
Strix-4 Launch
Last Friday, 2nd August, saw the successful launch of the Strix-4 EO satellite by Rocket Lab from their spaceport in New Zealand. Strix satellites are built by the Japanese company Synspective and carry an X-band synthetic aperture radar. Orbiting at an altitude of almost 550 kilometres, the satellite offers a spatial ground resolution of 1 metres to 3 metres, and has a swath width of up to 30 kilometres. It has two observation modes, Stripmap and Sliding Spotlight mode.
Synspective is ultimately hoping to achieve a constellation of 30, however despite its designation Strix-4 is only the third of constellation in orbit; following the launch of Strix-1 in 2022 and Strix-3 in March earlier this year – although two demonstrator satellites have also been launched. The data will support the solutions Synspective offers for disaster response and management, national security, and environmental monitoring.
Sentinel-2C Satellite
Last month, the third Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite, Sentinel-2C, was transported to the European spaceport in French Guiana. It is currently scheduled for launch by Arianespace on their Vega rocket, with the launch currently scheduled for September 3.
The previous two Sentinel-2 satellites, Sentinel-2A & -2B, were launched in 2015 and 2017 respectively. Sentinel 2C will replace Sentinel-2A. All three are optical satellites and carry a Multispectral Imager (MSI) that has 13 spectral bands with 4 visible and near infra-red spectral bands with a spatial resolution of 10 metres, 6 shortwave infrared spectral bands with a spatial resolution of 20 metres, and 3 atmospheric correction bands with a spatial resolution of 60 metres. It also has a swath width of 290 kilometres.
As an almost daily users of Sentinel-2 data for one project or another, we are excited to see Sentinel-2C progressing towards launch!
WorldView Legion 3 & 4 Satellites
Following the successful launch of Maxar’s WorldView Legion-1 and -2 on the 2nd May this year, the next pair are being readied to go into orbit. WorldView-3 and WorldView-4 have arrived at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida ready for launch onboard the SpaceX Falon 9 rocket
These satellites are both carrying a WorldView Legion Camera, which is a very high resolution optical imager with 9 spectral wavebands – two blue wavebands, one green, one yellow, three red, and one near-infrared offering a spatial resolution of 1.16 metres; together with one panchromatic band offering a spatial resolution of 29 centimetres. The swath width for all bands is 3 kilometres.
It is expected that these two satellites will be launched in the near future, and once in orbit they will create two-thirds of WorldView Legion constellation, with the remaining two expected to be in orbit by the end of 2024.
Summary
While it is fantastic to see the launch of new satellites such as the Strix-4 and the two WorldView Legion ones, it is even more exciting to see the launch of Sentinel-2C as this demonstrates the commitment of the Copernicus programme to the continuity of the existing dataset which is so important to companies such as Pixalytics for the products and services delivered to users and clients. We are looking forward to using the data from the new Sentinel-2C!
