Thales Alenia Space awarded contract as prime contractor for two Copernicus Sentinel-1 NG satellites

Thales Alenia Space announces the signing of a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) for the development of the two Sentinel-1 Next Generation satellites. The contract signed today represents the first tranche of a contract worth a total of 700 million euros.

Sentinel-1NG is part of Copernicus, the Earth Observation component of the European Union’s Space Program, which is managed by the European Commission and co-funded by the EU and the European Space Agency. ESA is responsible for the development and launches of dedicated Sentinel satellites, also operating most of the missions and ensuring the availability of data. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) also supports this mission.

Sentinel-1 Next Generation will be led under Thales Alenia Space’s industrial prime contractorship, with Airbus Defence and Space as main industrial partner being responsible for the C Band SAR instrument.

Sentinel-1 NG: the mission at a glance Sentinel-1 NG will provide observation data for environmental protection, climate monitoring, natural disaster assessment, and many other societal applications. The satellites will address the needs expressed by Copernicus Climate Change, Land and Marine Monitoring services and those responsible for Emergency Management and Security.

Among the many applications planned for this mission are the maritime surveillance, the monitoring of oceans, ice, and land, particularly with regard to soil moisture, vegetation cover, forest types, and crop types and conditions. The satellites will offer a day-and-night monitoring, whatever the weather conditions.

Sentinel-1 NG: key features

Sentinel-1 NG are 3-axis stabilized satellites based on the multi-mission platform (MILA), produced by Thales Alenia Space and already used for previous Copernicus missions, such as CHIME, CIMR, and ROSE-L, all led by the company as prime contractor.

Each Sentinel-1 NG satellite will carry a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) as the main instrument and a second one for the automatic identification system (AIS) to enhance maritime safety, improving traffic management and monitoring vessels in sensitive areas. The satellites will ensure the continuity of the first-generation Sentinel 1 family, for which Thales Alenia Space was also responsible for the space segment.

The SAR uses a large active planar antenna (Phased Array) measuring 13.6 m x 0.94 m and employs the innovative multichannel acquisition technique enabled by new Modular Electronic Units developed by Thales Alenia Space. This allows image resolution to be improved up to four times compared to the first generation and enables observation of a larger area.

Improvements over the first generation include the implementation of the Quad-polarization operating mode, essential for modern land monitoring applications, and a specific operating mode for sea ice observation (Polar Mode).

The MILA multi-mission platform will also meet space debris mitigation requirements and the implementation of a controlled re-entry of the satellites into the atmosphere at the end of their operational life.

Thales Alenia Space’s role and countries’ contributions While the program’s prime contractorship is led by Thales Alenia Space in Italy, our teams in Belgium will supply the Power Conditioning and Distribution Unit (PCDU) and the photovoltaic assembly for the solar panel (PVA). Thales Alenia Space in Switzerland will provide the cameras for monitoring the openings of the SAR antenna and the solar panels. Our teams in Spain will deliver the Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) and the S-band transponder (SBT), while Thales Alenia Space in France will be responsible for controlling the position of the solar array wings (SADA). Leonardo will supply the Star Trackers.

“I wanted to thank our longstanding customer, the European Space Agency, for putting its trust in our company”, stated Thales Alenia Space CEO, Hervé Derrey. “Sentinel-1 NG mission will serve as a new pillar aboard European Copernicus, the most sophisticated environmental monitoring program ever established, to which we are proud to contribute to 11 of the 12 missions”.

“Thales Alenia Space will leverage its proven experience in radar Earth observation programs to contribute to this new challenging mission", said Giampiero Di Paolo, Senior Vice President Observation, Exploration and Navigation. “Sentinel-1 Next Generation will offer radar imaging capabilities far beyond those of Sentinel-1 first generation, thereby expanding coverage both in Europe and globally, while reducing the intervals between successive radar images”.