ESA MSG-3: 200th RAL Space instrument launched to help improve weather warnings

ESA's Meteosat Second Generation 3 (MSG 3) which has on board, the 200th Rutherford Appleton Lab (RAL) Space instrument to be launched, was successfully sent on its way (22:36:07 BST, 5 July 2012) from Korou in French Guiana.

The MSG 3 will help weather forecasters predict thunderstorms and fog - providing data for use by meteorologists and climate scientists worldwide.

A video of the launch can be found here.

The Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument which has been developed and manufactured by an international consortium led by STFC’s RAL Space, is one of a pair of instruments onboard the MSG 3 satellite.

“The GERB project has had two instruments operating successfully for the last ten years, and this third instrument will allow observation to continue for another 5 years. GERB has allowed scientists to study the Earth Radiation Budget in much more detail than any other instrument, and I am very proud of the technical leadership provided by RAL Space”, said RAL Space Director, Professor Richard Holdaway.

GERB measures how the Earth heats and cools by making high accuracy measurements of the solar radiation absorbed, and the infrared energy emitted.

It can make global measurements every 15 minutes allowing scientist to study events and features such as convective cloud, frontal systems and aerosol variability from dust storms or volcanoes.

It is the first instrument providing dedicated measurements of the Earth radiation budget from geostationary orbit.

Read more about Space Science and Technology from Prof Richard Holdaway

ESA Development of Meteosat Third Generation

Marking a significant milestone for Europe's next fleet of meteorological satellites, ESA has given the go-ahead to Thales Alenia Space in France to start work on developing the Meteosat Third Generation.

The 'Preliminary Authorisation To Proceed' was signed today after a kick-off meeting between ESA and Thales Alenia Space.

This approval follows several months of negotiations that has resulted in a final industrial team of Thales Alenia Space (FR) and the initial consortium members, OHB (DE) and Kayser Threde (DE), together with, in a range of complementary functions, Astrium (DE/FR).

Formal introduction of Astrium into the consortium will take place over the next six months. Following on from Meteosat Second Generation, the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) is being created through cooperation between Eumetsat and ESA to ensure continuity of high-resolution meteorological data to beyond 2037.

This next series of geostationary weather satellites will be a step change by providing significant improvements over the capabilities of the current Meteosat generation.

More at ESA Meteosat web portal

ESA Meteosat, ADN-Aeolus from DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics

The spectacular mountain range of the east coast of Greenland, viewed from the Falcon aircraft.

The region was chosen due to the strong surface wind speeds from the Greenland ice sheet towards the northern Atlantic Ocean – called katabatic winds.

These winds cause strong movements of the ocean surface and high waves, whose reflectivity was measured with the laser pulses.

Scientists from the German Aerospace Center's (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre; IPA) travelled to Iceland for the last of a series of DLR-led technology demonstration campaigns for ESA's meteorological satellite mission, ADM-Aeolus. Its closeness to Greenland and the Atlantic storm track region made the island a perfect base for the test flights with DLR's Falcon research aircraft.

The DLR team spent two weeks in Iceland, performing a total of six flights over Iceland, over the ocean between Iceland and Greenland and over the Greenland glacier plateau. The aim of this DLR-led campaign with A2D was to investigate details of the instrument operations strategy and to refine the ADM-Aeolus data processors that will provide the mission's wind products.

Two different wind lidar instruments – the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D), a prototype version of the instrument that will fly on ADM-Aeolus, and a reference wind lidar operating at an infrared wavelength of two microns – were operated onboard DLR's Falcon 20E aircraft, and both performed well throughout the campaign.

ESA Eumetsat: Meteosat not next generation weather system, yet

The ruling council of Europe’s Eumetsat meteorological satellite organisation failed to approve a $4.4 billion next-generation weather-satellite system when two of its 26 members withheld their votes, Eumetsat officials said.

With unanimity required to move the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) program forward, the project will essentially stand still until these two nations, which Eumetsat declined to identify, give their written endorsement for the approval process to restart.

For reasons related to the work assigned to their respective industries, Germany and Spain raised questions about the MTG project, European government and industry officials said. One industry official said Portugal also has objections, but it was unclear whether Portugal or Spain had withheld its vote.

Eumetsat Director of Administration Angiolo Rolli said in an interview that the two nations that withheld their votes had nonetheless expressed support for MTG and said they would deliver a formal opinion on it by June 30.

MTG is a six-satellite system designed to provide some 20 years of meteorological data starting in 2016 or 2017. It is budgeted at about 3.3 billion euros ($4.4 billion), with Eumetsat paying 75 percent of the cost and the 18-nation European Space Agency (ESA) funding the remaining share.

Read the full article in Space News, here

Controversy Over ESA MeteoSat Contract: European Weather Satellite

ESA Website link to MTG Sentinel-2 satellites

German government officials are blaming their own tactical error during negotiations with France for the controversy that has blocked approval of Europe’s $1.7 billion next-generation weather-satellite program since the beginning of the year and now threatens to cause lasting damage to the 18-nation European Space Agency (ESA), German government and industry officials said.

ESA’s ruling council is scheduled to meet March 17 in Paris to attempt to forge a compromise that would permit the German government to save face while at the same time approving a Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) contract valued about around 1.25 billion euros ($1.7 billion) with a consortium led by Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy, and OHB Technology of Germany.

That winning bid, in which Thales Alenia Space’s French division would be prime contractor, bested a bid by Astrium Satellites of Germany.

An ESA Technical Evaluation Board met three times before concluding that the Thales Alenia-OHB bid, which came in about 150 million euros lower than Astrium’s offer, should be favored for negotiations in view to a contract.

The decision to favor a French prime contractor — even one teaming with a German partner — has struck a raw nerve in Germany, particularly at the German Transport Ministry, which funds Germany’s contributions to Europe’s Eumetsat meteorological satellite organization.

Click on this link to read the full article

ESA: Third Generation of Meteosat

Since the launch of the first Meteosat in 1977, 33 years of imagery combined with increasing computer power have given meteorologists the tools to improve weather forecasting, with direct benefits for us.

Numerical weather prediction is improving with data from operational satellites, like Meteosat Second Generation (MSG). Today, thousands of daily measurements are the basis for numerical forecasts, making use of the world's most powerful computers. The MSG satellites are expected to provide operational services at least until 2015.

In order to have follow-up geostationary missions, ESA and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) plan the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellite system. Intended for launch in 2015, MTG will provide a significant improvement over the capabilities of the current Meteosat satellites.

The finalisation of the selection process for the contract to build the MTG satellites is still under way. After careful evaluation of proposals received by industry, the Tender Evaluation Board (TEB) has made a recommendation to ESA's Director General. The Director General has asked the TEB for some clarifications on the detailed report.

These clarifications will be provided at the beginning of March. The announcement of the company with which negotiations will be initiated will, therefore, take place in early March in order to allow the EUMETSAT special Council, planned on 15 March, to approve the MTG Programme Proposal.

Weather satellites allow us to monitor large areas of the globe, compensating for gaps in the terrestrial or sea-surface meteorology data-gathering network.

The wide-area view provided by satellites can frame an entire weather system in a single optical or infrared image. MTG will be a European operational geostationary meteorological satellite system and is set to revolutionise weather forecasting and environmental monitoring.

ESA's EUMETSAT - European next generation weather satellites

The choice of an industrial team to build the next generation of weather satellites - or Meteosats - for Europe has been delayed by three months.

The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) programme will cost about 3.4bn euros in total, and should guarantee space-borne weather data until at least 2040.

Thales Alenia Space of France and EADS Astrium of Germany are in competition to lead the satellites' development.

The European Space Agency said it still needed more information from the teams.

"Both are good but both have weaknesses, and we want to give both constructors the opportunity to improve," explained Volker Liebig, the agency's director of Earth observation.

"We will ask them to deliver by the end of January their new reports, in time for our Industrial Policy Committee in March," he told BBC News.

The selection of the winning team had been expected this week. The Paris-based organisation will oversee the research and development phase of the MTG project.

This will include two prototype Meteosats: an imaging spacecraft and a sounding spacecraft (one which can return information about different layers in the atmosphere).

Another pan-European agency, Eumetsat, will operate these platforms once they are launched and pay for their follow-ups. It is envisaged that the MTG programme will comprise six satellites in all, launched at intervals of a few years.

The Meteosat series stretches back to 1977. Currently, two platforms - Meteosat-8 and Meteosat-9 - provide the space data on which daily weather forecasts for Europe depend.

Esa member-states committed just under a billion euros to the MTG programme at a ministerial meeting last year. The details of the Eumetsat contribution, which will amount to more than 2.4bn euros, are expected to be finalised by its member states in mid-2010.

Eumetsat is holding a special council meeting in March to discuss MTG, and the intention is to nominate the industrial team for the space segment before that gathering.