SITAEL has provided its key technology for the SRAL (Synthetic aperture Radar and ALtimeter) instrument embarked on the Sentinel-3A satellite to measure sea and land surface topography and temperature.

February 16, 2016 – from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia at 17:53:31 GMT the Sentinel 3A Earth observation satellite has been launched by a Rockot vehicle.

Sentinel-3 mission falls within the Copernicus Programme, an initiative headed by the European Commission (EC) in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), which foresees the production of a series of satellites (called Sentinel), developed to provide a specific contribution in the field of the Earth Observations.

The Sentinel-3 programme is dedicated to operational oceanography and global land application, thanks to several instruments operating in a wide spectral window, from optical to microwaves.

SITAEL, in collaboration with Thales Alenia Space France, developed for the first two satellites (Sentinel 3A&B) a complex device being the core of the SRAL instrument. SITAEL just signed a contract also for the production of the flight models for the next two satellites (Sentinel 3C&D), expected to be launched before 2020.