ESA Launches FLEX and Sentinel-3C on Vega-C from French Guiana

The European Space Agency's FLEX Earth Explorer and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite have been launched together aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. According to ESA, Flight VV30 lifted off on 15 September at 03:21 (14 September at 22:21 local time), marking what the agency describes as a new milestone for Europe's Earth Observation Programmes.

FLEX, short for Fluorescence Explorer, is built to detect a signal that cannot be seen by the human eye: the faint fluorescence that plants emit while photosynthesising. Using its FLORIS instrument (also referred to by ESA as a Fluorescence Imaging Spectrometer), FLEX will measure this weak signal from orbit and map plant fluorescence across the planet. Because the fluorescence changes with plant health and environmental conditions, the data are expected to give scientists a new way to observe photosynthetic activity and vegetation stress on a global scale, including how plants respond to heat, drought and pests. ESA says the observations will help improve understanding of how vegetation reacts to a changing climate and of the global carbon and water cycles.