euesa1-6, Exercise 3: Copernicus

Model answer:

Copernicus is a European Earth-observation programme. It is an EU programme, funded and owned by the EU, while ESA builds and develops the satellites (the Sentinel family) and other organisations run the services that use the data. The data is freely available.

Uses (any three): tracking floods, fires and other emergencies; monitoring farming, forests and land use; watching sea ice, sea level and ocean conditions; measuring air quality and the climate.

It shows the division of roles between the EU and ESA described in Chapter 3.