Copernicus is an Earth Observation and Monitoring program of the EU. Copernicus operates a fleet of own satellites, called “Sentinel”, monitoring the status of the earth land surface, atmosphere and maritime environment. The Sentinel’s are supported by satellite data of different sources, e.g from private companies and other space programmes, so called “contributing missions” and additionally from measurement networks on the ground (in-situ data).
A detailed description of the program and the Copernicus services can be found on: