right around the entire world. >> standing by outside the mission control, french guiana, the director the earth observation programs. there are plenty of satellites looking down at the earth. what is special about yours? >> there is a new quality in the sentinel satellite. we're going for an operational system. what we have done in 75 years, we do now for environment and security. this is a major step forward. the specific satellite we are going to launch, sentinel 1, is a radar satellite. radar has the ability to look through the clouds and see by night and day. >> how could that be useful to people in flood regions, for example? >> yes, exactly. for this case, it is very useful to be able to look through the clouds, because when you have inundations, usually you have cloud cover because it is raining. then you can use -- you cannot use optic satellites, but you can use the radar satellites. >> how quickly would the information be available? are we talking real-time? >> we have the ability to relay the data via a relay satellite. this is in near real time. some minutes, data can be l