Get in the spacey Christmas spirit by decorating your tree with little models of the Sentinel satellites! These amazing Earth Observation spacecraft are a pat of the  Copernicus Programme of the European Union, flown by the European Space Agency and Eumetsat, to provide free and open data about our planet to all.

The models available cover all the launched Sentinels (so no Sentinel-4 or 5 yet) are:

• Sentinel-1
  Radar imaging spacecraft, three models are available:
  • Sentinel-1A - the first of the Copernicus Sentinels, still going strong after launch in 2014. This model has a hole(!) in the solar panel, right where the real spacecraft does after taking a hit from space debris in 2016.
  • Sentinel-1B - the sister spacecraft of Sentinel-1A, launched in 2016 and happily without a hole but now at end of life following a failure causing end of mission to be declared in 2022.
  • Sentinel-1C/D - the two new Sentinel-1 spacecraft, due for launch in the coming years. These are similar to A/B but with 4 small extra antennas to be able to detect ship traffic - supporting maritime users.
• Sentinel-2
  The second mission of the Copernicus programme, Sentinel-2 scans our planet in optical and infrared. The same model is included for all 4 Sentinel-2 spacecraft - A,B,C and D.
• Sentinel-3
  The main objective of the Sentinel-3 mission is to measure sea surface topography, sea and land surface temperature, and ocean and land surface colour. The same model is included for all 4 Sentinel-3 spacecraft - A,B,C and D.
• Sentinel-5p
  A “precursor” spacecraft to provide data ahead of the launch of Sentinel-5. Sentinel-5p is just one spacecraft and is used to monitor our atmosphere for air quality, ozone & UV radiation, and climate monitoring & forecasting.
• Sentinel-6
  Follows on as a critical reference mission to measure sea-surface height using radar altimetry. The same model is included for the 2 Sentinel-6 spacecraft - A and B.

Models

Each of the spacecraft is a simple model that has been designed with a loop to put thread through and hang on a Christmas tree branch. They have also been designed to be easy to print without supports.

The spacecraft models themselves were made from scratch based on renders online and available in the Copernicus Sentinel App (iOS, Android). Some liberties were taken (like the attachment of the Sentinel-1 solar panels) to make printing easier, but the overall look of the spacecraft should be good.

Note that these are not to scale!! The spacecraft themselves are quite different sizes so I resized them to look good together on a tree ;)

Printing/Post-Processing

These models have been designed to be easy to print, no supports should be necessary if printed in the orientation of the provided STLs. Note that your printer should be reasonably ok with small overhangs.

Sample print files for a Prusa i3 MK3S are provided. I'd recommend printing high speed at 0.3mm layer height as it speeds up the print and doesn't provide a noticeable impact on quality as far as these are concerned.

In order to print a full set of every Sentinel currently flying (or launching soon) you should print:

• 1 x Sentinel-1A.stl
• 1 x Sentinel-1B.stl
• 2 x Sentinel-1CD.stl
• 4 x Sentinel-2.stl
• 4 x Sentinel-3.stl
• 1 x Sentinel-5p.stl
• 2 x Sentinel-6.stl