Sentinel-2 is an Earth observation mission from the Copernicus Programme that acquires optical imagery at high spatial resolution (10 m to 60 m) over land and coastal waters. The mission's Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B satellites were joined in orbit in 2024 by a third, Sentinel-2C, and in the future by Sentinel-2D, eventually replacing the A and B satellites, respectively. The mission supports services and applications such as agricultural monitoring, emergencies management, land cover classification, and water quality. Sentinel-2 has been developed and is being operated by the European Space Agency. The satellites were manufactured by a consortium led by Airbus Defence and Space in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

Overview

The Sentinel-2 mission includes: To achieve frequent revisits and high mission availability, two identical Sentinel-2 satellites (Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B) operate together. The satellites are phased 180 degrees from each other on the same orbit. This allows for what would be a 10-day revisit cycle to be completed in 5 days. The 290 km swath is created by the VNIR and SWIR, which are each made of 12 detectors that are lined in two offset rows. The orbits are Sun-synchronous at 786 km altitude, 14.3 revolutions per day, with a 10:30 a.m. descending node. This local time was selected as a compromise between minimizing cloud cover and ensuring suitable Sun illumination. It is close to the Landsat local time and matches SPOT, allowing the combination of Sentinel-2 data with historical images to build long-term time series.

Launches

The launch of the first satellite, Sentinel-2A, occurred 23 June 2015 at 01:52 UTC on a Vega launch vehicle. Sentinel-2B was launched on 7 March 2017 at 01:49 UTC, also aboard a Vega rocket. Sentinel-2C was launched on 5 September 2024 on the last Vega launch vehicle.

Instrument

The Sentinel-2 satellites each carry a single instrument, the Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI), which has 13 spectral channels in the visible/near infrared (VNIR) and short wave infrared spectral range (SWIR). Within the 13 bands, the 10 m spatial resolution allows for continued collaboration with the SPOT-5 and Landsat-8 missions, with the core focus being land classification. Designed and built by Airbus Defense and Space in France, the MSI uses a push-broom concept and its design was driven by the large 290 km swath requirements together with the high geometrical and spectral performance required of the measurements. It has a 150 mm aperture and a three-mirror anastigmat design with a focal length of about 600 mm; the instantaneous field of view is about 21° by 3.5°. The mirrors are rectangular and made of silicon carbide, a similar technology to those on the Gaia astrometry mission. The MSI system also employs a shutter mechanism preventing direct illumination of the instrument by the sun. This mechanism is also used in the calibration of the instrument. Out of the existing civic optical earth observation missions, Sentinel-2 is the first acquiring three bands in the red edge. MSI has 12-bit radiometric resolution (bit depth) with brightness intensity ranging from 0–4095.

Spectral bands

Temporal offsets

Due to the layout of the focal plane, spectral bands within the MSI observe the surface at different times and vary between band pairs. These temporal offsets can be used to gain additional information, for example to track propagating natural and human-made features such as clouds, airplanes or ocean waves

Applications

Sentinel-2 serves a wide range of applications related to Earth's land and coastal water. The mission provides information for agricultural and forestry practices and for helping manage food security. Satellite images will be used to determine various plant indices such as leaf area chlorophyll and water content indexes. This is particularly important for effective yield prediction and applications related to Earth's vegetation. As well as monitoring plant growth, Sentinel-2 is used to map changes in land cover and to monitor the world's forests. It also provides information on pollution in lakes and coastal waters. Images of floods, volcanic eruptions and landslides contribute to disaster mapping and help humanitarian relief efforts. Examples of applications include: The Sentinel Monitoring web application offers an easy way to observe and analyse land changes based on archived Sentinel-2 data.

Products

The following two main products are generated by the mission: Additionally, the following product for expert users is also available:

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