Volker Liebig, ESA Director of Earth Observation, and Pascale Sourisse, President and CEO of Thales Alenia Space, signed the contract for Sentinel-3 Earth Observation satellite on 14 April 2008 in Paris. Sentinel-3 will provide crucial data for information services to the European Union and its Member States as part of GMES. The services to be fed data cover areas such as climate change, sustainable development, environmental policies, European civil protection, development aid, humanitarian aid and the European Common Foreign & Security Policy.