On Tuesday, the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched the BIOMASS satellite from the European Spaceport in French Guiana. The satellite’s mission is to deliver crucial data on the state of the world’s forests. A team of Polish engineers played an active role in the mission’s long-term development.
BIOMASS is one of ESA’s Earth Explorer missions, led by Airbus Defence and Space. As part of the mission planning and development, Polish engineers from the company GMV contributed by supporting mission design and developing software that processes scientific data transmitted from the satellite to Earth.
The goal of the Earth Explorer program is to provide data that enhances our understanding of Earth’s natural processes. BIOMASS is the first satellite of its kind to use a radar operating in the P-band, which can penetrate dense tropical forest canopies—enabling the creation of three-dimensional maps of forest biomass.
The mission will supply essential information about global forest conditions and how they are changing. It also aims to improve our understanding of forests’ role in the carbon cycle. The collected data will support more accurate global biomass estimates, help track changes in forest ecosystems, and provide valuable insights into the dynamics of carbon circulation in nature.
The collected data on global forest biomass estimates will be used to better understand the dynamics of the carbon cycle and to monitor changes happening in these ecosystems.
The Polish branch of GMV has been involved in the BIOMASS mission since 2014, focusing on mission analysis—planning how the satellite should move in orbit to collect useful data. As part of this work, the team calculated the optimal flight trajectory for each phase of the mission, as well as the necessary maneuvers to meet mission objectives and operational timing, taking into account energy requirements.
GMV in Poland also developed key components of the data processing system, known as Level-0 processors. These allow the transformation of the raw data transmitted by the satellite into information that can be used by scientists. All data collected during the BIOMASS mission will be openly available to the global scientific community.
The mission is planned to last five years, with the satellite operating in a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of approximately 666 kilometers.
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