[SatNews] ESA and Eurockot have signed contracts for launching....

....two ESA satellites: Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-3A will fly in 2013 on Rockot vehicles from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia for Europe’s GMES program. The contract signing by Matthias Oehm, Chief Executive Officer of Eurockot Launch Services GmbH, and Volker Liebig, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programs, took place at the historic Chamber of Commerce of Bremen, Germany. Eurockot is based in Bremen, Germany and is a joint venture between Astrium and Khrunichev Space Centre. The company provides low-orbit launches for observation and communication satellites from its dedicated facilities in northern Russia.

Sentinel-2 and -3 are two of five Sentinel missions that ESA is developing for Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program. Through GMES, decision-makers will have access to reliable, timely and accurate information services to manage the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security. The Sentinel series is planned to collect crucial Earth observation data for two decades. Sentinel-2 will deliver frequent and systematic high-resolution optical imagery of Earth’s landmasses, supporting operational applications in the fields of agriculture, forestry, land cover and cartography. The mission will support humanitarian relief work and the extraction of geophysical variables from vegetation. The Sentinel-3 mission will carry several instruments to measure variables such as sea-surface topography, sea- and land-surface temperature and ocean colour.

This summer, Eurockot will launch the three satellites of ESA’s Swarm mission, which will study Earth’s magnetic field.