Copernicus Data Space Sentinel APIs
Copernicus Data Space Sentinel APIs
Copernicus Data Space exposes Sentinel Earth-observation catalogue metadata through STAC and OData APIs and provides authenticated product downloads and processing services. STAC JSON records include collection, acquisition time, platform, processing level, cloud cover, geometry, bounding box and asset links; catalogue search needs no key, while product downloads need a free account.
Required Attribution:
Required notice for unmodified Sentinel data: "Copernicus Sentinel data [Year]". For modified data: "Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [Year]".
Coverage
The Sentinel catalogues span worldwide missions whose temporal coverage and update schedules differ by collection. The Sentinel-2 Level-2A STAC collection declares global coverage beginning 27 June 2015. General-user S3, OData and STAC access has a 12 TB rolling 30-day transfer quota for immediately available data, four concurrent connections and 20 MB/s per connection.
Verdict
A broad geospatial signal for tracking land, water, atmosphere, vegetation and infrastructure change from satellite observations. Use collection metadata to check resolution, processing level, temporal extent and timeliness before comparing products. STAC currently covers a limited set of Data Space collections, and actual product downloads require authentication. Sentinel data carries source-notice requirements, while non-Sentinel collections can have different licences that must be checked per collection.
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Use in your agent
Load recent Copernicus Sentinel-2 metadata into pandas and Parquet. Checked against the provider's documentation on Nov 2, 2026.
Access
- No account or key is needed for the checked STAC catalogue query.
- Downloading the referenced product files requires a free Copernicus Data Space account and access token.
Request
curl 'https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1/collections/sentinel-2-l2a/items?limit=20&datetime=2026-11-01T00%3A00%3A00Z%2F2026-11-02T23%3A59%3A59Z'Format
STAC GeoJSON FeatureCollection containing item IDs, collection, acquisition and processing metadata, cloud cover, geometry, bounding boxes, links and assets.
Load into pandas and Parquet
Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.
"""Recent Copernicus Sentinel-2 L2A STAC metadata -> pandas -> Parquet. No key."""
import requests
import pandas as pd
URL = (
"https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1/collections/"
"sentinel-2-l2a/items"
)
PARAMS = {
"limit": 20,
"datetime": "2026-11-01T00:00:00Z/2026-11-02T23:59:59Z",
}
r = requests.get(URL, params=PARAMS, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
features = r.json()["features"]
rows = []
for feature in features:
props = feature["properties"]
rows.append({
"id": feature["id"],
"collection": feature["collection"],
"datetime": props.get("datetime"),
"platform": props.get("platform"),
"cloud_cover": props.get("eo:cloud_cover"),
"processing_level": props.get("processing:level"),
"bbox": feature.get("bbox"),
})
df = pd.DataFrame(rows)
df["datetime"] = pd.to_datetime(df["datetime"], utc=True)
df.to_parquet("copernicus_sentinel2_l2a_stac.parquet", index=False)
print(len(df), "items", df["datetime"].min().isoformat(), "to",
df["datetime"].max().isoformat(), "platforms", ",".join(sorted(df["platform"].dropna().unique())))Run by us on 2026-11-02 (python 3.13.5 | pandas 3.1.0 | pyarrow 26.0.0 | requests 2.34.2). Result: 20 items 2026-11-02T19:55:59.024000+00:00 to 2026-11-02T19:55:59.024000+00:00 platforms sentinel-2b
Limits
- Rate limit: Not stated for STAC.
- The STAC catalogue covers a limited set of Data Space collections.
- General-user immediately available downloads are subject to a 12 TB rolling 30-day quota, four concurrent connections and 20 MB/s per connection.
Quirks
- STAC search metadata is keyless, but following a product download link requires an authenticated access token.
- Collection IDs, properties and asset layouts differ; inspect each collection description before flattening records.
- A response can contain a next link and token; follow that link for additional pages instead of constructing a token from item IDs.
Terms and attribution
- Copernicus Sentinel Data and Service Information has free, full and open access for lawful reuse under the EU legal notice.
- Use the prescribed Copernicus source notice when distributing or communicating Sentinel data, and the modified-data notice after adaptation.
- Check collection-level licences for non-Sentinel products; the Sentinel notice does not cover every Data Space collection.
Sources
- https://documentation.dataspace.copernicus.eu/APIs/STAC.html: “Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem STAC Catalog can be accessed using the following URL:”
- https://documentation.dataspace.copernicus.eu/APIs/STAC.html: “It includes a limited set of data collections but more will be included in the upcoming months”
- https://documentation.dataspace.copernicus.eu/Quotas.html: “The following limitations and quotas are monthly and reset on the first day of every month:”
- https://sentinels.copernicus.eu/documents/247904/690755/Sentinel_Data_Legal_Notice: “EU law grants free access to Copernicus Sentinel Data and Service Information for the purpose of the following use”
Information and education only. Not financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Listings can be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date and are provided "as is". Free tiers, limits and licenses belong to each provider and can change, so check the provider's own terms before you rely on them. Terms & Disclaimer