Sentinel-2

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission comprises a constellation of two polar-orbiting satellites placed in the same sun-synchronous orbit, phased at 180° to each other. It aims at monitoring variability in land surface conditions, and its wide swath width (290 km) and high revisit time (10 days at the equator with one satellite, and 5 days with 2 satellites under cloud-free conditions which results in 2-3 days at mid-latitudes) will support monitoring of Earth’s surface changes.

This Sentinel-2 Mission Guide provides a high-level description of the mission objectives, satellite description and ground segment. It also addresses the related heritage missions, thematic areas and Copernicus services, orbit characteristics and coverage, instrument payload, and data products.

The Mission Guide categories are:

Overview
This section provides a brief description of the mission and the main thematic areas and services such as land monitoring and climate change.

Mission Objectives
Describes primary and secondary objectives of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.

Satellite Description
Describes the satellite platform and the communication links, the main instrument of the Sentinel-2 mission, the MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI), as well as the orbit characteristics of the mission.

Ground Segment
Describes the Flight Operations Segment (FOS) and the Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) of the mission.

Data Products
Outlines the Level-1B, Level-1C and Level-2A data products that are available to users, including the Level-1C tiling grid.

Sentinel-2 infographic

To celebrate the recent five year anniversary of Copernicus Sentinel-2 – with the launch of Sentinel-2A on 23 June 2015 – we produced a special infographic on the mission. The infographic highlights important facts and achievements of the mission after its first five years of operations.