Image: Proba-V passes the torch

ESA's cubic-metre-sized Proba-V minisatellite has ended its seven-year global mission to monitor the daily growth of all Earth's vegetation, a task being taken up by Copernicus Sentinel-3 instead, seen right.

Proba-V was launched in 2013 to fill a gap in global vegetation monitoring between the end of France's Spot satellites and Copernicus Sentinel-3. Its compact Vegetation instrument has a 2250-km wide continent-scale field of view, allowing it to image all Earth's vegetation in just over a single day.

Overall, the mission has acquired more than a petabyte of environmental data during its time in orbit, which was processed and distributed to users by VITO, the Belgian research and service centre.

Its observing mission having ended at the end of June, Proba-V will now to free to perform experimental monitoring over Europe and Africa—including co-observations with new companion missions.