Last night, the latest EU Sentinel satellite was sent up to space from French Guiana. Sentinel-2A will improve global agricultural monitoring by providing global coverage at 10-20 m resolution. Together with the Sentinel-1A SAR sensor (operational since October 2014) and its Sentinel-1B twin to be launched next year, the satellite can monitor all crop production systems around the world, including the most humid regions with important cloud cover.

Thanks to the open data license policy of the European Commission the satellite will support GEOGLAM in monitoring crop conditions for AMIS. It will also strengthen capacities of national monitoring agencies and provide satellite imagery for many different applications of public and private organizations interested in agriculture.

AMIS wishes the Copernicus programme managers and the mission team at the European Space Agency good luck for the sensor deployment and initial testing over the next couple of days and looks forward to receiving the first images.

• Launch of the satellite
• More about Copernicus
• More about Sentinel 1 and 2