Satellite Envisat officially retired

The European Aeronautics Agency (ESA) on May 9 officially announced the end of Envisat's mission, the world's largest environmental monitoring satellite, lost contact last month.

>>>Capture the largest satellite image in the world missing

Designed for five years, Envisat directs the Earth's orbit in 2002, bringing enough equipment to track the weather phenomena of the globe, from the ocean, glaciers, rocks and the atmosphere.

Envisat was unable to continue working

The 8.2-ton satellite, 10.5 meters long, the largest of the group of weather satellites, continues the difficult task for another five years beyond the expected, completing more than 50,000 revolutions around orbit (ie about 2 , 25 billion km).

Envisat has not contacted the ground station at Kiruna (Sweden) since April 8, and every attempt to restore the satellite's operation failed.

The ESA had hoped to maintain Envisat until the Sentinel 7-satellite replacement system was launched in 2013, according to AFP.

Data collected by Envisat has been used in more than 4,000 science projects in 70 countries, including important studies on climate change.