Genoa, Italy - Final destination of the Costa Concordia
Costa Concordia was a Concordia-class cruise ship built in 2004 by the Fincantieri, Sestri Ponente yards in Italy and operated from 2005 until 2012 by Costa Crociere (a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation). It was wrecked off the coast of Isola del Giglio in Italy on 13 January 2012. It was declared a total loss and later towed to the port of Genoa where it will be scrapped. The name Concordia was intended to express the wish for "continuing harmony, unity, and peace between European nations." Costa Concordia was ordered in 2004 by Carnival Corporation from Fincantieri and built in the Sestri Ponente yard in Genoa, as yard number 6122. At the vessel's launch at Sestri Ponente on 2 September 2005, the champagne bottle, released by model Eva Herzigová, failed to break when swung against the hull the first time, an inauspicious omen in maritime superstition. The ship was delivered to Costa on 30 June 2006. She cost €450 million to build. Costa Concordia was 290.20 metres long, had a beam of 35.50 m and drew 8.20 m of water. It had a diesel-electric power plant consisting of six 12-cylinder Wärtsilä 12V46C four-stroke medium-speed diesel generating sets with a combined output of 76.6 MW. These main generators provided power for all shipboard consumers from propulsion motors to hotel functions like lighting and air conditioning. The ship was propelled by two 21-megawatt electric motors coupled to fixed-pitch propellers. Her design service speed was 19.6 knots, but during sea trials, she achieved a speed of 23 knots. Costa Concordia was the first of the Concordia-class cruise ships, followed by similar ships Costa Serena, Costa Pacifica, Costa Favolosa and Costa Fascinosa, and Carnival Splendor built for Carnival Cruise Lines. When the 114,137 GT Costa Concordia and its sister ships entered service, they were among the largest ships built in Italy until the construction of the 130,000 GT Dream-class cruise ships. On 13 January 2012 at about 9:45 p.m., in calm seas and overcast weather, Costa Concordia struck a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea just off the eastern shore of Isola del Giglio, on the western coast of Italy about 100 km northwest of Rome. This tore a 50 m gash on the port side of her hull, which soon flooded parts of the engine room resulting in power loss to her propulsion and electrical systems. With water flooding in and listing, the ship drifted back to Giglio Island where she grounded 500 m north of the village of Giglio Porto, resting on her starboard side in shallow waters with most of her starboard side under water. Despite the gradual sinking of the ship, its complete loss of power, and its proximity to shore in calm seas, an order to abandon ship was not issued until over an hour after the initial impact. Although international maritime law requires all passengers to be evacuated within 30 minutes of an order to abandon ship, the evacuation of Costa Concordia took over six hours and not all passengers were evacuated. Of the 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew known to have been aboard, 32 died. More information is available on the Costa Concordia and the disaster on Wikipedia.
 
Today we feature the final destination of the Costa Concordia. These images acquired by the Landsat 5 and 8 satellites in 2003 and 2015 aim to show the port of Genoa where the Costa Concordia was built. The vessel was brought home to this port in 2014 to be scrapped following the disaster two years earlier. Another aim of these images is to promote the opportunity to download Landsat data through the ESA portals, where images captured every day are made available in near real time to the users and the scientific community. Landsat full resolution data products are freely available for immediate download at:  View Landsat 5 TM high resolution image (JPG 1.8 MB) View Landsat 8 OLI high resolution image (JPG 3 MB)
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