Envisat satellite,artwork. The Sun is emerging from behind the Earth's limb in the background. This satellite,launched on 1 March 2002 by the European Space Agency (ESA),was designed to make observations of the Earth using a variety of scientific instruments,including spectrometers,radiometers,radar altimeters,and atmospheric monitoring systems. At the time,it was the largest satellite launched by ESA. It was placed in a polar orbit at an altitude of 790 kilometres. Contact with the satellite was lost in April 2012,two years before a planned switchover to the Sentinel satellites (due to be launched from 2013) |