Europe poised to launch ocean-monitoring satellite

Europe is set to launch a satellite on Wednesday to keep a close eye on Earth's oceans, under siege from pollution and damage caused by humans.

Dubbed Sentinel-3B, the orbiter will become the seventh to join the multi-billion-euro Copernicus Earth monitoring satellite constellation since April 2014.

With its twin Sentinel-3A launched in February 2016, the workhorse will provide data within three hours of it being captured, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

Sentinels-3A and 3B will mirror each other on opposite sides of our planet at an altitude of just over 800 kilometres (497 miles), on the lookout for further harm to the ocean or signs of recovery.

"The Sentinel-3 mission is essential for applications for ocean and coastal monitoring" -- including changes in sea level and surface temperature, pollution, sea ice extent and thickness, and coastal vegetation, said an ESA statement.

It will also monitor the height of rivers and lakes, and keep an eye on wildfires.

About the size of a small car and weighing 1,250 kilogrammes -- Sentinel-3B will be hoisted into space by a Russian Rockot launcher from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the country's north.

Liftoff is scheduled for 1757 GMT on Wednesday.

Fitted out with a range of state-of-the-art instruments, "Sentinel-3 is arguably the most comprehensive of all the Sentinel Missions," says the ESA.

The Copernicus project, funded by the European Union and ESA, is named for the 16th-century Polish astronomer who determined that the Earth orbited the Sun, and not the other way round as convention had it at the time.

It claims to be the largest environmental-monitoring programme in the world, providing data for free to anyone who wants it.

- Emergency response -

Other satellites in the constellation are dedicated to monitoring Earth's atmosphere, forest cover, and land and water pollution.

By mapping areas stricken by flood or earthquake, Copernicus will improve the response after natural disasters, helping emergency teams identify worst-hit areas and locate passable roads, rail lines and bridges.

The total Copernicus budget from 2008 to 2020 is about 7.5 billions euros ($9.2 billion).

There is some uncertainty over the impact of Brexit on the project in which Britain is invested.

Britain's EU-linked participation in Copernicus should officially end when it leaves the bloc, though its role can be renegotiated.

London has said it wants to remain part of ESA, which is autonomous and includes non-EU members.

UK-based companies hold contracts worth tens of millions of euros from ESA to supply hardware for Copernicus as well as the Galileo satellite navigation project -- a rival to America's GPS.

Angola loses first satellite, plans successor
Luanda (AFP) April 23, 2018 - Angola on Monday confirmed the premature death of its first national telecoms satellite, Angosat-1, which was launched in December and was expected to have a working life of 15 years.

The Russian-made Angosat-1 struggled with repeated setbacks immediately after its launch from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.

Contact with the satellite was soon lost and never recovered despite many attempts.

"The satellite remained in orbit from December 26 to 30. After that we had a problem," Igor Frolov, a representative of manufacturer Energia RSC, said at a press conference in Luanda.

Angolan Telecommunications Minister Jose Carvalho da Rocha immediately announced that the satellite would be replaced by a successor -- Angosat-2 -- under a new agreement with Russia.

"Building will begin tomorrow at no cost to Angola... it will have more capacity and be more sophisticated than its predecessor," da Rocha said, adding it would be finished in 18 months.

The Angosat project was founded by Russia and Angola in 2009 and includes a control centre in a suburb of the Angolan capital Luanda.

Angosat-1 had been intended to improve satellite communication, internet access and broadcasting of radio and television across Africa.

Angola draws large revenue from its oil reserves but suffers extreme inequality with UNICEF calculating 38 percent of the population live in poverty.

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Airbus adds extra precision to Sentinel-3 satellite altimetry
Madrid, Spain (SPX) Apr 19, 2018
A new highly precise MicroWave Radiometer (MWR) built by Airbus is ready to start operations after the launch of the Sentinel-3B satellite built by Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for this program. It is one of the essential instruments of the Sentinel-3 spacecraft, measuring atmospheric humidity as supplementary information for tropospheric path correction of the altimeter signal. In addition, MWR data is useful to measure surface emissivity and soil moisture over land, surface ener ... read more