Thales Alenia Space leads a 700 million euro first tranche to build two new radar satellites, but the gap left by Sentinel 1B's 2021 failure won't close until well into the next decade.
Europe's newest radar imaging satellites just got a contractor, but the machines meant to widen the continent's view of the planet will not reach orbit for at least another decade, a gap that will shape European Earth observation through the rest of the 2020s.
On June 10, the European Space Agency selected Thales Alenia Space to build two Sentinel-1 Next Generation radar satellites for the Copernicus program, according to SpaceNews. Airbus Defence and Space will supply the synthetic aperture radar payloads under a 345 million euro subcontract with Thales. Thales's first tranche under the prime contract is worth 700 million euros, or around $807 million. Neither Thales nor ESA has disclosed the total program value.
The deal extends a long-running industrial split. Thales builds the bus, Airbus delivers the radar instruments, and ESA runs the procurement inside the joint ESA/European Commission Copernicus Earth observation program. The two new spacecraft, when they fly, will be the fifth and sixth in the Sentinel-1 line.
The technical changes are concrete. The current Sentinel-1 spacecraft deliver 5 by 20 meter geometric resolution and 250 kilometer swaths. Sentinel-1 NG is designed for 5 by 5 meter resolution, swaths up to 400 kilometers, and active beam steering that finally gives the constellation polar reach, the deltas SpaceNews reports from the procurement announcement. For users tracking sea ice, oil spills, ground deformation, or ships in the Arctic, that combination is the difference between a useful snapshot and a blind spot.
The timing is the harder part of the story. Sentinel-1B failed in orbit in late 2021, leaving Europe's operational SAR fleet at three spacecraft, Sentinel-1A, Sentinel-1C, and Sentinel-1D, and putting more pressure on the satellites that remain. ESA has not announced a launch date for Sentinel-1 NG, and the agency frames the satellites as not expected before the early 2030s. Airbus's own statement, as reported by SpaceNews, projects a first launch in 2034.
That timeline is what the contract signature actually locks in. A procurement announcement reads as a step forward for European Earth observation, and it is, but the capability it funds will not arrive in time to relieve the workload on Sentinel-1A, -1C, and -1D. The gap that opened in 2021 will stay open through most of this decade, and the next-generation system that closes it will, in practice, begin counting down its operational life almost the moment it is declared ready.
What to watch next: how ESA funds and slots any interim capacity, whether the Sentinel-1 NG industrial schedule holds against a 2034 first launch, and whether the program-level contract value ever surfaces publicly. The headline number in circulation today is the first tranche, and it is the only one the parties have put on the record.