Science

SENTINEL-1C

C-band SAR Imaging (Copernicus — Constellation Restored) · ESA / Copernicus

The satellite that saved Europe's all-weather eye on Earth. When Sentinel-1B suffered a fatal power failure in December 2021, the Copernicus program lost half its C-band radar coverage overnight — leaving only Sentinel-1A to cover the entire planet alone for three years. Sentinel-1C, launched December 5, 2024 on the returning-to-flight Vega-C rocket, restored the full twin-satellite constellation and its critical 6-day global revisit cycle. Its radar sees through clouds, storms, and total darkness to track Arctic sea ice for shipping safety, detect oil spills, monitor ground subsidence beneath cities to within millimeters, and now — for the first time on any Sentinel-1 satellite — carries an AIS receiver that identifies and tracks ships by their transponder signals directly alongside the radar imagery of the vessels themselves.