Mission record

Vega-C | Biomass

Vega-C· Ariane Launch Area 1 (ELV)· Success
Trajectory & orbital insertion · playback
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Provider
Arianespace
Provider type
Commercial
Orbit
SSO
Mission type
Earth Science
Launch site
French Guiana
Date
Tue, 29 Apr 2025 09:15:52 GMT
Orbital launch #
#6941 ever

Mission

Biomass is an European Space Agency mission designed to measure the density of carbon stored in the world's forests. The spacecraft, built by Airbus Defence and Space, features the first civilian P-band synthetic aperture radar as well as a 12m-diameter deployable reflector from L3Harris made of over 900 km of gold-coated molybdenum 25µm wire. With a minimum operational lifetime of 5 years in its 666km 6am/6pm sun-synchronous orbit, the global coverage achieved every 9 months allows to precisely monitor the evolution of forests over time.

Deployed payloads · 1
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