A major new health check on the Earth got under way on 1 March 2002, when the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. It is the largest and most sophisticated Earth observation satellite ever built.
Following the launch and deployment of the solar panel and antennas, the ten instruments on board the satellite were turned on and verified one by one: all are operating nominally.
The satellite is performing well and providing measurements of the atmosphere, ocean, land and ice, providing a new, enhanced perspective on questions related to global environmental monitoring and climate change.
Envisat will reveal new data and build further on the information gathered over the past ten years by ESA’s ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites, which has given important insights into the impact of human activity on the environment and put issues such as ozone depletion and pollution on the agenda of decision-makers and the media.
The first data available from the satellite were acquired via the Kiruna station in Sweden and processed at the ESA/ESRIN establishment and processing and archiving centres throughout Europe.
The first images from the ASAR radar and the MERIS instrument are of exceptionally high quality, as demonstrated by data acquisitions covering areas of Antarctica and West Africa.
