As I write this, there are 8 hours to go until the launch of Sentinel-1a. The final stage has been added to the rocket and the Ariane Espace and ESA team have been rehearsing the final hours of countdown. The picture below shows the Jupiter control room, where the launch will be monitored live. 

The Sentinel 1a Satellite is part of the Copernicus programme, a highly ambitious project to provide an eye in the sky for Europe.  Sentinel 1A will provide radar images that can map oil spills and landslides, find planes or ships lost at sea and even check subsistence of buildings.  At 700k above ground this satellite can measure if a building is sinking into the ground by just a few millimetres.  It also allows mapping of flooding areas in cases where storms prevent optic (in the range of human vision) imaging. 

When the actual moment of the launch arrives, they call it H-0 here (heure being hour), nobody presses a button, it's all automated.  If something goes wrong a special team in a different building who monitor trajectory have a thankless job.  The satellite has a self-destruct button, which will vaporise the rocket and its payload if it strays from the intended path.  Nerves are understandably a little more frayed today. 

In a few hours we will head out to a viewing point called Colibri to see the launch.  H- 8 hours and 26 minutes

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