How To Download Sentinel Satellite Data

Download Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Satellite Data

If you want to download Sentinel satellite data, then you’ve come to the right place.

One of the most exciting developments in remote sensing at this time is the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Programme.

Copernicus’ six Sentinel satellites collect comprehensive pictures of our land, ocean, emergency response, atmosphere, security, and climate change to understand the health of our planet.

Until very recently, this data has become available to the public at no cost. Today, we show you step-by-step how to download Sentinel satellite data.

Sentinels Scientific Data Hub

Product Catalog Sentinel

In 2014-15, Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2A were successfully launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

One Sentinel scene after the other, data has been rolling out on a user interface called the Sentinels Scientific Data Hub.

It’s now available for the public to access.

But you will have to hop through a couple of hoops before you can get your fingers on it.

Follow these steps to download free Sentinel satellite data:

Step 1. Create a User Account

Go to Sentinels Scientific Data Hub.

In the top-right of the web map, click the SIGN UP button.

Insert valid entries for your name, email, and location. Click register. Validate your email.

With a few clicks of the mouse, you’ve gained access to ESA’s Sentinel data.

Sign Up Sentinel

Step 2. Select Your Area of Interest

Where is your study area?

Using the SEARCH CRITERIA text box in the top left, type in your area of interest.

In our example, we’ve typed Germany. Click Enter twice.

From here your search will yield results for all the Sentinel satellite data available.

Sentinel-1 (Synthetic Aperture Radar C-Band) swaths are depicted in red. Sentinel-2 (multi-spectral data) swaths are depicted in green.

READ MORE: What’s the difference between active and passive sensors?

Search Criteria Sentinel

Step 3. Download Sentinel Data

Now, that we have our user account created with our study area defined – all we have to do is sift through the results and download our chosen Sentinel data.

As we are working with large data sets, you will have to be patient with download speeds. It’s easy for the server to timeout during the download.

Select the product you want to download. S1A is Sentinel-1A. S2A is Sentinel-2A.

Product Download Sentinel

Below is the product thumbnail that has the download URL. This is what you want to clip in order to download your chosen Sentinel data.

What are the Spectral Bands of Sentinel 2A and 2B?

We’ve listed below, the spectral and spatial resolution of Sentinel 2A. There are 13 bands in total. Four spectral bands have a 10-meter resolution. Six bands have a 20-meter resolution. And the remaining 3 have a spatial resolution of 60 meters.

Here are the spectral band details for Sentinel 2A:

BandResolutionCentral WavelengthDescription
B160 m443 nmUltra Blue (Coastal and Aerosol)
B210 m490 nmBlue
B310 m560 nmGreen
B410 m665 nmRed
B520 m705 nmVisible and Near Infrared (VNIR)
B620 m740 nmVisible and Near Infrared (VNIR)
B720 m783 nmVisible and Near Infrared (VNIR)
B810 m842 nmVisible and Near Infrared (VNIR)
B8a20 m865 nmVisible and Near Infrared (VNIR)
B960 m940 nmShort Wave Infrared (SWIR)
B1060 m1375 nmShort Wave Infrared (SWIR)
B1120 m1610 nmShort Wave Infrared (SWIR)
B1220 m2190 nmShort Wave Infrared (SWIR)

Every single satellite revisit time is 10 days.

Because there are two satellites (Sentinel 2A and 2B), this means it has a combined constellation revisit of 5 days.

What’s Next?

After you download Sentinel satellite data, chances are that you are going to want to display it in the visible spectrum. This is exactly how our eyes see objects around us.

Each image is separated by its respective spectral band. See our table below for the spectral bands of Sentinel 2. Sentinel 2B will be identical to Sentinel 2A.

If you want to combine the red, green, and blue channels as composite bands (such as Google Earth imagery) – read our composite bands tutorial.

…Or maybe you’d like to perform an NDVI analysis in ArcGIS or image classification. You now have free satellite data from Sentinel to help you.

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40 Comments

  1. I was successful in getting the data and downloading but to my surprise trying to add to ArcMap is not possible. This is the message I am getting “Invalid Raster Dataset, Failed to create Raster Layer” What has gone wrong? Is it an error during downloading the datasets or what?

  2. Like so many others have said, it doesn’t matter which country or area I put in it just says “No Products Found”

  3. Hello, I want to estimate above-ground forest biomass using sentinel 2 imagery data and NDVI as an analysis tool. What steps should be taken to get the final biomass? Thanks

  4. Hi, how can I download the cloud probability maps @160 m? They seem not to be present in the Copernicus package
    Thanks!

  5. All I get when searching on the Copernicus Open Access Portal is “no products found.” I created an account, confirmed it, and I’m logged in. It says I have search and download privileges. Any ideas on what is wrong?

  6. Please how can I extract bathymetric information from Sentinel-2 and which bands are used?
    Thank you

  7. ^^^ SAME ^^^. Absolutely no data found regardless of what I put in (including the example ‘Germany’).

  8. What rubbish. NO data found whatever country is input. I don’t know how these people make their way through life with such incompetent websites.

  9. Hi, I downloaded the Sentinel data with its bands, which Band can I use to classify Bare soil, Do you have instructions on putting together a sentinel-2 composite map. Thank you

  10. Is there anyway to download the imagery before it has been segmented into individual tiles? ie entire swaths? I keep finding there will be one or two tiles missing from each swath.

  11. Sorry, it’s been awhile since I’ve used PCI Geomatica. Maybe someone else might chime into help you out.

  12. Do you have instructions on putting together a sentinel-2 composite in PCI Geomatica as a single PIX file? The file to bring these bands in together does not work, and the workflow has slipped my mind.

  13. Hi, I want to download Radarsat-1 / SAR data of 2003. Does anyone know any free (non-commercial) source?

  14. Once I download the Sentinel data with its bands, how to generate NDVI from the bands? Thx.

  15. I don’t know for sure but ArcGIS may default to the lowest resolution. What happens if you resample all bands to 10 meters and then try composite bands? That probably should work

  16. Hi! I’m having the following problem.
    I downloaded a Sentinel 2 image. I used Arcgis 10.1 to view each band, and checked that each band has the spatial resolution listed here. Then, after the composition of the bands, I get all band combinations with a 60m resolution, not 10, even when I try to use 4-3-2. Does it mean that I need to composite only the 10m resolution bands to get a 10m resolution final image? Thank you so much

  17. Previously, Sentinel-2 files came as JPG2000, one for each spectral band. So if you wanted to view a scene in natural color (RGB), you would have to perform ‘composite bands’. You can do this in qgis.org or in ArcGIS.

    Generally, you can’t view these raw files in Photoshop because they are georeferenced. That means a TIF file would have world file (TFW). And I believe, Adobe Photoshop doesn’t know how to handle these files.

    So after performing ‘composite bands’, try exporting it to different formats that Adobe Photoshop can open. For example, exporting it to PDF format would suffice as Photoshop can open this file format.

    Hope this helps

  18. After downloading the zip file and extracting. The measurement .tiff files (>500MB size) display as full pixel size, but only solid black. I’ve tried a few photo editors (Blender, PS etc) all compatible, but still show solid black screen. Is there a reason for this? Is there a work around? Thanks

  19. I want to download the Sentinel 3 data, but on scihub.copernicus.eu it seems that they didn’t have Sentinel-3 data. Where can I find it ? Thanks..

  20. Using QGIS, images can be downloaded directly in your map with the semi-automatic classification plug-in.

  21. I found that dragging an outline around an area on their display map revealed the swathpaths that I was after. Works like a treat.

  22. Sorry to hear that. I haven’t had this issue at all. You can also download Sentinel-2 data from USGS Earth Explorer, which should work 100% of the time

  23. 99% chance of not downloading properly. Download appears to be complete, but file is incomplete. This is after resuming downloads etc. More trouble shooting instructions would have been useful, as I expect you would have experienced the problems I have, but have chosen to gloss over HOW PROBLEMATIC the download is/can be.

  24. Please note that the Copernicus Programme belongs to the European Union and not the European Space Agency.

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