The EU’s Covert Military Satellite Program

The world’s biggest Earth-observation program gets underway in Europe.

The EU launched its Sentinel-1a satellite from French Guiana on April 3 as it began the rollout of its advanced fleet of Earth-monitoring satellites. Once the Sentinel-1a’s sister satellite, the 1b, is launched, the pair will be able to give radar images of anywhere on the Earth within three to six days.

They’re part of the EU’s Copernicus project which aims to give the EU an extensive view of the Earth’s surface.

“There is no Earth-observation project as big as this,” said Prof. Anne Glover, the EU’s chief scientific adviser.