ESA completes CRISTAL solar-array integration, begins qualification testing

ESA said Oct. 26, 2026, that integration of CRISTAL’s solar arrays is complete and key qualification reviews are under way at Airbus’ Friedrichshafen, Germany, site, moving the ice-monitoring satellite from assembly into the testing phase that must prove readiness for launch and orbit.

ESA said engineers completed assembly at the Friedrichshafen site in September and then ran the first solar-panel deployment test, checking that mechanisms and software sequences work together so the wings can open once the satellite reaches orbit. With launch service provider AVIO, the team confirmed CRISTAL fits on its launch adapter and that the release mechanism works for separation and orbital injection. The project also conducted its Intermediate Qualification Status Review, examining equipment, instrument and subsystem qualification and verification status before satellite-level qualification tests begin.

Kristof Gantois, ESA’s CRISTAL project manager, said everything is progressing well. “Everything is progressing very well and the satellite passed these tests with flying colours,” Gantois said, calling it an important step toward preparation for the next phase of testing.

ESA will move the satellite from Airbus in Friedrichshafen to its establishment in the Netherlands. There it will spend most of next year undergoing stringent environmental tests to ensure it withstands liftoff and life in the harsh space environment.

ESA said CRISTAL, also referred to as Sentinel-9, will become the first Copernicus Sentinel Expansion mission to reach orbit, and it is targeting launch for late 2027 to early 2028. An earlier ESA update indicated CRISTAL-A could be ready for launch in the second half of 2027, while Sentiwiki schedules the launch for 2028.

ESA signed the prime contract with Airbus Defence and Space in July 2020. The mission completed its Preliminary Design Review on May 24, 2022, and its Critical Design Review in July 2024, clearing the design for manufacturing, integration and testing.

The spacecraft, built by Airbus Defence and Space and based on the Sentinel-6 platform with CryoSat-2 heritage, has a mass of 1700 kg and a planned lifetime of 7.5 years. Six fixed and two deployable solar arrays provide 18.6 m2 of area, and onboard storage holds up to 4 TBits of data. One source gives a drifting polar altitude of roughly 699 km, while another lists about 717 km with a 92-degree inclination.

CRISTAL carries the Interferometric Radar altimeter for Ice and Snow and a microwave radiometer. The radar altimeter, developed by Thales Alenia Space, follows the CryoSat SIRAL instrument with dual-band Ku-band at about 13.5 GHz and Ka-band at about 35.75 GHz, each with 500 MHz bandwidth, and delivers a 10 km instantaneous field of view and 80 m along-track resolution in SAR mode. The radiometer corrects atmospheric effects to improve measurements of sea-ice thickness and snow depth.

As part of the Copernicus Expansion programme, CRISTAL is one of six Sentinel Expansion missions developed with the European Commission to address priority observational gaps. ESA said its data will support maritime safety in polar regions, coastal and inland-water applications, ocean-topography monitoring and climate research, extending radar-altimetry ice-elevation records for at least two decades. CRISTAL-B is planned to launch toward the end of CRISTAL-A’s operational life to sustain the observations.