Operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), it was the world's largest civilian Earth observation satellite.

[2] It was launched on 1 March 2002 aboard an Ariane 5 from the Guyana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of 790 ± 10 km.

Its objective was to support the continuity of European Remote-Sensing Satellite missions, providing additional observations to improve environmental studies.

To accomplish the global and regional objectives of the mission, numerous scientific disciplines used the data acquired from the sensors on the satellite to study atmospheric chemistry, ozone depletion, biological oceanography, ocean temperature and colour, wind waves, hydrology (humidity, floods), agriculture and arboriculture, natural hazards, digital elevation modelling (using interferometry), monitoring of maritime traffic, atmospheric dispersion modelling (pollution), cartography and snow and ice.

AATSR (Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer) can measure the sea surface temperature in the visible and infrared spectra.

Among the secondary objectives of AATSR is the observation of environmental parameters such as water content, biomass, and vegetal health and growth.

MIPAS has a vertical resolution of 3 to 5 km (2 to 3 mi) depending on altitude (the larger at the level of the upper stratosphere).

SCIAMACHY is an image spectrometer with the principal objective of mapping the concentration of trace gases and aerosols in the troposphere and stratosphere.

SCIAMACHY uses 3 different targeting modes: to the nadir (against the sun), to the limbus (through the atmospheric corona), and during solar or lunar eclipses.

Mean sea level measurements from Envisat are continuously graphed at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales web site, on the Aviso page.

[12] Envisat is currently orbiting in an environment where two catalogued space debris objects can be expected to pass within about 200 m (660 ft) of it every year, which would likely trigger the need for a manoeuvre to avoid a possible collision.