Copernicus, one of the two major European space infrastructures alongside the Galileo navigation system, will broaden, by the end of the decade, the spectrum of its Earth observation missions.
To this end, the European Space Agency (ESA) signed, on 13 November, three contracts worth a total of 1.4 billion euros with Airbus Defense & Space (DS) and Thales Alenia Space (TAS), subsidiary of the French Thales and the Italian Leonardo, which are entrusted with the development and production of new specialized observation satellites.
They must be delivered by December 2028 with the aim of being put into service in early 2029 after being launched by Vega C, the successor to the small Italian Vega rocket.
By this time, Copernicus will have six new missions, corresponding to the environmental and societal objectives of the European Union, thanks to an investment of 2.85 billion.
Available free of charge and hosted by Google, Copernicus data is
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