The European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed the successful launch of Sentinel-4, an atmospheric monitoring instrument developed by Airbus, onboard the Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1) weather satellite. The launch took place as scheduled and marks a new phase in Europe’s satellite-based environmental monitoring.
Sentinel-4, a UV-VIS-NIR spectrometer developed in Germany on behalf of ESA, is designed to collect high-frequency data on key air pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulphur dioxide, formaldehyde, and atmospheric aerosols. The instrument is intended to enhance monitoring of air quality and contribute to forecasting pollution events and tracking long-term atmospheric trends.
Integrated into the MTG-S1 satellite, Sentinel-4 will operate from a geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the Earth, delivering hourly data over Europe and North Africa. This configuration allows for simultaneous observation of both meteorological conditions and chemical composition of the atmosphere, providing a comprehensive dataset for weather and climate models.
The mission is part of the European Union’s Copernicus programme, which provides free and open access to Earth observation data. Sentinel-4's output will serve a range of users including scientists, public authorities, and environmental agencies.
The Sentinel-4 instrument is operated by EUMETSAT, alongside the MTG satellite, and follows a lineage of earlier atmospheric sensors such as SCIAMACHY and TROPOMI, also developed by Airbus. A second Sentinel-4 unit is currently being integrated and is scheduled to launch in the 2030s aboard the MTG-S2 satellite.
