The European Space Agency has announced that the Sentinel-2A satellite has received a one-year extension, delaying its planned retirement.
As part of the European Commission’s Copernicus programme, the Sentinel-2 mission delivers high-resolution optical imagery for land monitoring. This data supports agriculture, forestry, disaster response, and environmental protection by tracking changes in vegetation, soil, and water bodies.
The first Sentinel-2 satellite, Sentinel-2A, was launched in June 2015. While it has a planned lifespan of seven years, it carries enough propellant to operate for up to 12 years, including provisions for de-orbiting manoeuvres following its retirement.
Sentinel-2C was launched in September 2024 aboard the final Vega rocket and was intended to replace Sentinel-2A. However, ESA has now granted Sentinel-2A a one-year exceptional and temporary extension, which will begin in March.
“Sentinel-2A will not retire yet,” said Christoph Kautz, Director for Satellite Navigation and Earth Observation at DG DEFIS. “Copernicus is user-driven, and we listen to the users all the time.”
Kautz’s reference to listening to users likely alludes to a petition signed by 1,683 Sentinel-2 users, urging ESA to extend Sentinel-2A’s operation “for as long as possible.” The group argued that “three operational satellites instead of two would increase revisit and largely improve the quality of the generated maps and products.”
Preparations for Sentinel-2A’s mission extension began in January 2025, with manoeuvres initiated to reposition the satellite by early March 2025. With this new orbital configuration, the average revisit time of the Sentinel-2 constellation will be drastically reduced.
“This configuration will enhance the availability of Sentinel-2 data, with additional Sentinel-2 observations on the same relative orbit, occurring 2 days apart from Sentinel-2B and 1 day apart from Sentinel-2C.” explained an ESA statement.
Although the one-year extension of the Sentinel-2A mission has been approved and is set to commence, it will be subject to a mid-term verification checkpoint.
