Space Technology

Tropomi was launched on 13 October 2017 on the European satellite Sentinel-5P, built by the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of the European Commission's Copernicus Earth Observation programme. The Tropomi instrument makes it possible to measure air quality on Earth with great accuracy, so the instrument equipped with Dutch technology is very valuable for a targeted approach to tackling global air pollution. NLR comprehensively tested the processing of the data that Tropomi sends back to Earth every day. The clients of Tropomi are the ESA and the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). From design to launch the entire satellite cost approximately 220 million euro, of which the Netherlands paid roughly half.