The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, Sentinel-1C, has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket, flight VV25, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 December 2024 at 22:20 CET (18:20 local time).

Sentinel-1C extends the legacy of its predecessors, delivering high-resolution radar imagery to monitor Earth’s changing environment, supporting a diverse range of applications and advance scientific research. Additionally, Sentinel-1C introduces new capabilities for detecting and monitoring maritime traffic.

The launch also marks Vega-C’s ‘return to flight’, a key step in restoring Europe’s independent access to space. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.

Proba-3 lifted off on its PSLV-XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Thursday, 5 December, at 11:34 CET (10:34 GMT, 16:04 local time). The mission was launched using this Indian launcher because it needed to be placed in a highly elliptical orbit extending more than 60 500 km from the ground.

After integration and testing was completed at Redwire Space in Belgium, Proba-3 was transported to India to be prepared for launch.

The latest member of ESA’s family of in-orbit demonstration missions, Proba-3 is in fact two spacecraft being launched together, which will separate in

ESA’s eclipse-making Proba-3 double satellite mission has made it to space! Learn more about Proba-3 from the mission team as they bid farewell to their spacecraft, while ESA's Director General Josef Aschbacher wishes the team the best of luck.

The latest member of ESA’s family of in-orbit demonstration missions, Proba-3 is in fact two spacecraft being launched together, which will perform precise formation flying, accurate to a single millimetre, about the thickness of an average fingernail. To prove their performance, Proba-3 has been devoted to an ambitious scientific goal. The pair will line up precisely with the Sun