At 5 p.m. ET today, Europe is expected to launch the first of six satellites that will eventually form multi-billion-dollar Copernicus Earth observation project developed to provide valuable data about the planet for everyday applications, for efforts geared toward improving the way the environment is managed -- and which could supply images in the event of a natural disaster or events like plane crashes.

Best of all, according to the European Space Agency, the Copernicus database will not only be open to users worldwide, but are also free of charge.

The Sentinel-1 satellite, which carries a 40-foot-long radar antenna, as well as two 33-foot-long solar panels, is to be blasted into orbit from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana aboard a Russian-made Soyuz rocket and then settle into orbit at a distance of 439 miles above the earth.

Here's the ESA's live launch feed: https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-1/Watch_Sentinel-1_launch

Once in orbit, the satellite will monitor sea ice, oil spills and land use, as well as respond to natural emergencies like floods and earthquakes.

The $11.5 billion Copernicus project, funded by the ESA as well as the European Union, is considered to be Europe's most ambitious space mission so far.

The launch of the project's first satellite became especially urgent after Europe lost contact with its 10-year-old Earth observation satellite Envisat in 2012, according to a report by Reuters.

"The big step forward is that we can now cover every place on Earth every 3-6 days," Volker Liebig, director of ESA's Earth Observation program, told Reuters. "This used to take much longer with Envisat. If you want to use images for disaster management support or to find a plane, then you want the images to be as fresh as possible."

Weather satellites have been providing operational data for years, and now the family of Sentinel missions will do the same for environmental monitoring.

"On one side," Guido Levrini, the Copernicus Space Segment program manager, said in an ESA news release, " this launch is the culmination of a decade of personal professional investment and on the other side it is the beginning of a large-scale construction. It is the first stone, the foundation of a soon-to-materialise splendid cathedral -- we already get a glimpse of its cupola from the distance."

The project's six Sentinel satellites, each carrying cutting-edge monitoring equipment, will deliver a stream of images and data that can be tailored to the specific needs of those who access the database.