Europe launches the FLEX satellite, the first designed to map plant health from space using invisible fluorescence
ESA's FLEX satellite launched aboard a Vega-C rocket alongside Sentinel-3C from French Guiana on September 15, 2026, per ESA and Space.com.
The European Space Agency's FLEX satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite launched together aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on September 15, 2026. FLEX, weighing 397 kilograms, carries a Fluorescence Imaging Spectrometer that detects the faint glow plants emit during photosynthesis, a measurement ESA says no other satellite can currently make, producing global vegetation fluorescence maps at 300 by 300 meter resolution. Sentinel-3C, the third satellite in the Sentinel-3 series and weighing 1,143 kilograms, will monitor oceans, land, ice and atmosphere as part of the EU's Copernicus program. Sources: ESA, Space.com.