Russian Soyuz-ST booster with European scientific Earth remote sensing satellite was successfully launched from Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, – the Head of European space agency representation office in Moscow Rene Pischel reported.
“The launch took place at the planned time. In 9 minutes European space device separated from the 3rd stage of Soyuz booster, in 23 minutes the satellite separated from Fregat-M upper stage, – Pischel said.
“Sentinel” will be a part of European global natural and anthropogenic phenomena monitoring system. The weight of the satellite amounts to 2,3 tons.
Sentinel is the first of 2 similar satellites and will be set into the heliosynchronous orbit at the height of 690 km. It will provide for marine navigational routes monitoring, ice floes mapping, oil spills and earthquakes monitoring, forest, inland water and soil mapping, humanitarian operations support and crisis resource management.