Europe’s next pair of Copernicus satellites, the Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment or CHIME, is moving from design desks to reality. With funding now secured for all six Copernicus Sentinel Expansion missions and a major instrument test completed, Europe is preparing a new space-based “health check” for the planet’s land and coastal zones.
CHIME sits inside a new family of Sentinel missions that plug important gaps in Europe’s Earth observation system. Alongside CO2M, CIMR, CRISTAL, LSTM, and ROSE L, it is planned to track how land, ice, oceans, and the atmosphere are changing.
A hyperspectral eye on land and water
Instead of taking pictures in just a few colors, CHIME’s hyperspectral imager will record more than two hundred narrow “bands” of light from the visible into the short wave infrared.
From a sun-synchronous orbit a little above 600 kilometers, the two satellites will scan strips of land about 130 kilometers wide with ground detail of around 30 meters and revisit equatorial regions roughly every eleven days.
Helping farmers and soils
For farmers and land managers, CHIME’s data can show how plants are doing long before leaves turn yellow or yields drop. Hyperspectral signatures are sensitive to leaf pigments, water content, and nutrients, so they help estimate nitrogen status and photosynthetic activity across entire regions. Used well, that can support precision farming, smarter fertilizer use, and irrigation that saves both water and money.
The same measurements tell a story about the soil under our feet. CHIME will support mapping of topsoil composition, including organic carbon and clay minerals, which is vital for understanding how much carbon is stored in farmland and how soils cope with erosion. In mining and raw materials, its spectral detail can help identify surface minerals and monitor how extraction sites change over time.
Watching water, forests, and snow
CHIME will also watch inland and coastal waters. By teasing apart different shades of reflected light, its instrument can help estimate chlorophyll, suspended particles, and dissolved organic matter in lakes, rivers, and near-shore seas. That kind of insight matters when authorities try to spot harmful blooms early.
On land, the mission will complement the broad view from existing Sentinel 2 images. Its finer spectral sampling can distinguish vegetation types, assess forest biodiversity, and monitor land degradation at scales useful for local planners. Snow and ice are part of the picture too, since hyperspectral observations help describe grain size and impurities that affect how bright frozen surfaces appear.
Smart design, smart politics
Behind the scenes, CHIME’s hyperspectral imager uses a three-mirror telescope that feeds three identical spectrometers, with cooled detectors to keep the signal stable. Because hyperspectral files are huge, the spacecraft also carries a data processing unit that can detect clouds and compress observations with the help of artificial intelligence.
None of this would happen without political backing. When the United Kingdom decided to rejoin the EU’s Copernicus program, it unlocked the money needed to finish all six Sentinel Expansion missions, including CHIME. ESA’s director for Earth observation programs called the UK decision “essential to secure the completion of the Copernicus Sentinel Expansion Missions” and described the new fleet as “critical for addressing EU policy and gaps in Copernicus user needs.”
What happens next
Following structural and thermal tests on a detailed model of the hyperspectral instrument, engineers are preparing CHIME’s hardware for integration and final review. Based on current plans, the first satellite is expected to launch near the end of the decade, with its twin following a few years later, although exact dates can still shift as development milestones are met.
Once CHIME joins the Copernicus constellation, its data will feed services for agriculture, climate monitoring, and ecosystem management. Most people will never see the raw spectra that stream down from orbit. What they may notice instead are better informed decisions about how we grow food, protect soils, and care for water in a warming world.
The official mission overview was published on the ESA CHIME mission page.
Image credit: ESA – European Space Agency.
