• On 1 July 2020, the European Space Agency awarded contracts for the development and construction of six further Copernicus satellites.
• Contracts with a value of more than 800 million euro are being awarded to space companies in Germany, a high percentage of which are SMEs.
• The new satellites are intended to help find answers to the global challenges posed by climate change, population growth and environmental problems.

BONN, Germany (DLR PR) — Sentinel satellites are at the heart of Copernicus, Europe’s largest Earth observation programme. Sentinels are already reliably and continuously providing large amounts of data on the state of the climate, vegetation and oceans. Now, six more ‘Earth Guardians’, the High Priority Candidate Missions (HPCM), are being added.