Watch ESA’s new satellite being launched into space
The European Space Agency’s newest satellite soared into orbit with a beautiful backdrop of the northern lights.
Video: ESA satellite lift-off as seen from Finland (Credit: Antero Isola)
Sentinel-3A satellite was launched on 16th February 2016 in Plesetek, Russia.
About six minutes after lift-off, footage was captured of the launch as the satellite passed through the Aurora Borealis—the northern lights. The video was shot one thousand kilometres away from the launch site, at Karigasniemi in northern Finland.
Sentinel-3A is carrying a whole range of scientific instruments to measure features of the Earth’s ocean (temperature and height of the sea surface), land (wildfire monitoring, vegetation health, height of rivers and lakes), and the extent of sea-ice and land ice, as part of Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA) website, the first signal from Sentinel-3A was received by the Kiruna station in Sweden, 92 minutes after launch.
The satellite is now orbiting the Earth at a height of 817.5 kilometres.
Read more: ESA Sentinel-3A satellite
