Deal worth 400 million euros signed for new satellites

(ANSA) - Rome, December 15 - French-Italian aerospace manufacturer Thales Alenia Space on Tuesday signed a contract worth more than 400 million euros to build two satellites for the European Space Agency's (ESA) Copernicus observation programme.
    The new satellites to be built, called Sentinel 1C and 1D, are part of the first family of satellites in the programme, which are specialised in radar observation. Sentinel 1A has been in orbit since 2014 and Sentinel 1B will be launched in April.
    Sentinel 1C is due to be finished in December 2020 and 1D is scheduled for 2021.
    The data generated by the satellites in the programme include information on forests, glaciers, seas and coasts and can be used for various purposes such as farming and controlling maritime traffic, as well as studying the climate.
    So far more than 15,000 users have registered on the Sentinels scientific data hub, 2.5 million products have been downloaded - corresponding to 3 million GB of data - and 350,000 products are available online for download, ESA said on its website.
    The latest two satellites are going to be fully financed by the European Commission, said the commission's Mauro Facchini during the contract signing in Rome.