ESA awards contract for next-generation radar imaging satellites
Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space won contracts to build the next generation of radar imaging satellites for Europe's Copernicus Earth observation program.
The European Space Agency announced June 10 that it selected Thales to build two Sentinel-1 Next Generation (NG) satellites, with Airbus providing the radar payloads. The two companies had similar roles in the development of earlier Sentinel-1 spacecraft.
Thales said it signed a contract whose first tranche is worth 700 million euros ($807 million), but neither the company nor ESA disclosed the total value of the contract. Airbus said its contract with Thales for the radar payloads is worth 345 million euros.
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The Sentinel-1 NG spacecraft would be the fifth and sixth of the overall Sentinel-1 line of missions, which are equipped with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) payloads for Earth science applications. Three of the earlier spacecraft - Sentinel-1A, -1C and -1D - are in service today, while Sentinel-1B malfunctioned in orbit in late 2021.
Sentinel-1 NG will provide improvements over the earlier Sentinel-1 spacecraft, including improved geometric resolution of 5 by 5 meters compared to 5 by 20 meters for the existing spacecraft. The spacecraft will also be able to operate in modes with a greater swath width of 400 kilometers compared to 250 kilometers and be able to observe the poles using active beam steering.
The Sentinel-1 missions are part of the broader Copernicus program, run jointly by ESA and the European Commission, to provide Earth observation data using a wide range of instruments.
"The Sentinel-1 Next Generation mission will serve as a new pillar for Copernicus, the most sophisticated environmental monitoring program ever established," Hervé Derrey, chief executive of Thales Alenia Space, said in a statement.
"While current Sentinel-1 satellites continue to serve users in orbit, we are excited to see the next-generation mission take shape," Simonetta Cheli, ESA's director of Earth observation, said in a statement.
ESA has not announced when the Sentinel-1 NG satellites will launch, but they are not expected to be ready until the early 2030s. Airbus, in its statement about its contract, projected a first launch in 2034. While Sentinel-1A is more than a decade old, Sentinel-1C was launched in December 2024 and Sentinel-1D in November 2025, and each has a nominal mission lifetime of seven years.
ESA separately announced June 10 it approved for development a small astrophysics mission, Arrakihs. The spacecraft, whose name is derived from Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys, will fly two binocular telescopes sensitive to wavelengths from the ultraviolet to near-infrared to study halos surrounding nearby galaxies.
"Arrakihs is a groundbreaking and unique galactic archaeology mission," Carole Mundell, ESA's director of science, said in the announcement of the selection. "By uncovering hard-to-see galaxy halos, it will reveal new details of how galaxies form and whether the Milky Way galaxy is unique."
Arrakihs is ESA's second F-class, or "Fast," mission selected as part of the broader Cosmic Vision space science program, so named because such missions are designed to be ready for launch within 10 years of selection. The first, Comet Interceptor, is in development for launch as soon as August 2028.
ESA said it is planning to launch Arrakihs by the end of 2030 but did not disclose launch plans or the overall cost of the mission. ESA set a cost cap of 175 million euros in the call for F-class proposals. A group of ESA member states led by Spain is supporting the mission, with Spanish company Satlantis the prime contractor for its instrument. Another Spanish company, Added Value Solutions, previously won a study contract to provide the spacecraft bus.
The approval for Arrakihs came at a meeting of ESA's Science Programme Committee that also recommended that ESA select a medium-class mission, Plasma Observatory, for development. That mission, which would study plasmas in Earth's magnetospheric systems, was one of three finalists ESA identified in 2023 for the next medium-class mission launching in the mid-2030s. A formal decision to approve Plasma Observatory is planned for November.
The committee also approved the extension of 13 operating space science missions, ranging from ESA's role on the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope to smaller astrophysics, planetary and space science missions.
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