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The Vega-C rocket has placed the FLEX and Sentinel-3C satellites in orbit from French Guiana, enabling scientists to study the state of vegetation and obtain new data on the oceans, land, ice and the atmosphere.
Since Tuesday, Europe has had two new satellites to observe Earth from space. The Vega-C rocket lifted off from the European spaceport in Kourou, in French Guiana, at 22:21 on Monday carrying the FLEX and Sentinel-3C satellites.
The mission, known as VV30, will help expand the information available on the state of the planet and the effects of climate change.
The main goal of FLEX is to gain a better understanding of how plants function and how they respond to situations such as extreme heat or a lack of water.
The satellite is equipped with an instrument capable of detecting a faint light that plants emit when they carry out photosynthesis. This signal cannot be seen with the naked eye, but it contains information about the state of vegetation and makes it possible to detect when plants are suffering because of environmental conditions.
FLEX will be able to produce maps of vegetation activity with a resolution of around 300 metres by 300 metres. The mission is designed to operate for at least three and a half years.
The mission also has significant Spanish involvement. Scientist José Moreno, a professor at the University of Valencia and principal investigator for FLEX, is leading the mission’s scientific team. Spain’s Ministry of Science itself has underlined the country’s role in this European Space Agency project.
Travelling alongside FLEX is Sentinel-3C, the third satellite in the Sentinel-3 mission under the European Copernicus programme. Its job will be to continuously monitor the oceans, land surface, ice and atmosphere. Its data are used, among other things, to improve weather forecasting and to study how the climate and the environment are evolving.
Sentinel-3C will join a mission that already includes the Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B satellites. The new spacecraft will replace Sentinel-3A, which has been in operation since 2016.
Although FLEX and Sentinel-3C travelled into space together, they will not initially remain in the same orbit. This will allow data from both missions to be combined to gain a better understanding of how vegetation responds to environmental conditions.