Launched on 25 April from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, Sentinel-1B has produced its first images only two hours after the radar was switched on – a record time for a space radar.

The first observations were taken a little more than two days after launch, on 28 April at 05:37 GMT, after Sentinel-1B had followed a complicated routine to deploy its 12 m-long radar and two 10-m long solar wings, as well as passing a series of initial checks.

The first image, 250 km wide, captured Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, with the Austfonna glacier clearly visible.

At ESA’s operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, mission controllers thoroughly checked the satellite’s control, navigation and power systems, among others, during the intense first few orbits. The team also conducted the complex unfolding of the radar wings and solar arrays.

“It may feel a little like a routine because we launched three Sentinel satellites in less than 12 months, but of course it is not,” noted Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

“Getting a satellite into orbit is always thrilling and every time we do this I am quite nervous. Our engineers and industry have shown what we can achieve with this fourth Sentinel delivering a first image in record time. We have another important part of the Copernicus missions in orbit. A great achievement from a great team.”