On 20 September, the Copernicus Sentinel-2C satellite tv for pc captured its first beautiful picture of the Moon, achieved by rolling the satellite tv for pc sideways in a singular manoeuvre. Though Sentinel-2C is designed for Earth commentary, this picture – supposed for calibration and cross-mission comparisons – exceeded expectations.
The picture, with a formidable decision of round 5 km, reveals notable lunar options, together with the Copernicus Crater, the Tycho Crater and the lunar seas: the Sea of Tranquillity, the Sea of Moisture and the Sea of Clouds. This showcases the flexibility of Sentinel-2C’s multispectral imager, which often operates from its 786 km orbit to seize high-resolution information of Earth’s land and coastal waters.
This lunar picture is a part of a daily ‘Moon calibration’ course of. Roughly as soon as a month, the satellite tv for pc will roll sideways to picture the Moon as an alternative of Earth. The Moon’s well-known and secure gentle depth permits us to detect and proper even the smallest modifications within the instrument’s efficiency, which might happen resulting from getting older, comparable to optical coating degradation or detector drifts.
This course of ensures the ‘radiometric accuracy’ of the info stays exact all through the mission, a essential parameter for a lot of functions.
The uncooked information initially displayed an elongated, eclipse-shaped Moon brought on by the relative movement between the Moon and the satellite tv for pc. A correction of this impact was carried out to understand this implausible picture.
Launched on 5 September 2024, Sentinel-2C joins its twin satellites in orbit persevering with to ship worthwhile high-resolution imagery for the Copernicus programme.
