ESA Secures New Generation MetOp-SG Weather Satellites

Contracts were signed today to build three pairs of MetOp Second Generation satellites, ensuring the continuity of essential information for global weather forecasting and climate monitoring for decades to come.

MetOp-SG is a cooperative undertaking between ESA and Eumetsat, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.

These new satellites offer enhanced continuity of the current MetOp series, today’s main source of global weather data.

Comprising six satellites in total, the mission is based on a pair of satellites that carry different packages to deliver complementary meteorological information.

The A series of satellites will be equipped with atmospheric sounders as well as optical and infrared imagers, while the B series focuses on microwave sensors.

Following the first documents that were signed at the Berlin Air Show earlier this year, the full contracts to build the six MetOp-SG satellites were signed today by ESA and Airbus Defence and Space.

The ceremony at ESA headquarters in Paris, France, was attended by Geneviève Fioraso, the French Minister for Higher Education and Research, and the Director-General of Eumetsat, Alain Ratier.

Airbus Defence and Space France now takes up the role as prime contractor for the A satellites and Airbus Defence and Space Germany for the B series.

Although the different satellites will be developed and built in Toulouse, France and Friedrichshafen, Germany, respectively, a large industrial consortium of many European companies will be involved under the leadership of Airbus Defence and Space.

Lockheed Martin successfully mates NOAA GOES-R satellite modules

Lockheed Martin successfully mated together the large system and propulsion modules of the first GOES-R series weather satellite at the company’s Space Systems facilities near Denver, Colorado.

Credit: Lockheed Martin

A team of technicians and engineers at Lockheed Martin has successfully mated together the large system and propulsion modules of the first GOES-R series weather satellite at the company's Space Systems facilities near Denver, Colorado.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R series (GOES-R) is NOAA's next-generation geostationary weather satellites.

The system module of the A2100-based satellite houses more than 70 electronics boxes that comprise the three major electrical subsystems; command and data handling, communication, and electrical power.

The propulsion core contains the integrated propulsion system and serves as the structural backbone of the satellite.

The propulsion subsystem is essential for maneuvering the GOES-R satellite during transfer orbit to its final location, as well as conducting on-orbit repositioning maneuvers throughout its mission life.

"Positioning these large modules together in such a precise manor is a challenging task," said Tim Gasparrini, vice president and program manager for GOES-R at Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

"Our team spent many hours modeling and analyzing the procedure in our virtual reality lab called the CHIL before tackling the mate in the cleanroom."

"This was a critical step in the integration of GOES-R and the team did an outstanding job."

With the core spacecraft completed, the team will begin installing the six weather and solar-monitoring instruments onto the satellite.

Functional testing and environmental testing phases of the program will follow this fall. GOES-R is scheduled to be launched in early 2016.

Data from NOAA's GOES-R satellites provides accurate real-time weather forecasts and early warning products to NOAA's National Weather Service and other public and private sectors.

The advanced spacecraft and instrument technology on the GOES-R series will vastly improve forecasting quality and timeliness, generating significant benefits to the U.S. and Western Hemisphere in the areas of public safety, severe weather monitoring, space weather prediction, ecosystems management, commerce and transportation.

NASA Terra Mission Image: MODIS Earth Observation - Climate Change

NASA launched the Earth Observing System's flagship satellite "Terra," named for Earth, on December 18, 1999. 

Terra has been collecting data about Earth's changing climate.

On February 24, 2000, sensors on NASA's Terra satellite began opening their shutters and making their first observations. 

The mission ushered in a decade of observations from NASA's Earth Observing System, a coordinated series of satellites that monitor how Earth is changing.

This image is based largely on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) - a sensor aboard the Terra Satellite - on July 11, 2005. 

Small gaps in MODIS’ coverage between overpasses, as well as Antarctica (which is in polar darkness in July), have been filled in using GOES weather satellites and the latest version of the NASA Blue Marble.

Image Credit: NASA

ESA: EUMETSAT's Metop-B Lift-off - YouTube

ESA's Metop-B lifts-off the launch pad at 18:28 CEST from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

Europe will receive nearly infallible weather data and save almost $7 billion in weather-related damage annually thanks to this trio of bus-sized spacecraft. This is what the atmosphere will look like in HD.

The MetOp-B satellite, which launched on Monday (local time), is part of a $4 billion joint venture between the European Space Agency and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

The program is also coordinating with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) so that MetOp and similar NOAA satellites can maximise their orbital coverage.

The three MetOp satellites are nearly identical. They weigh slightly more than 4000kg and measure 17.6m × 6.5m × 5.2m with their solar panels fully extended, making them the second largest Earth-observation satellite produced by the Europeans.

They will each travel a 820km polar low Earth orbital trajectory during each of their five-year operations.

The individual MetOp satellites are not in orbit together but are instead being launched in five-year increments.

MetOp-A launched back in 2006, Met-Op-B launched on Monday from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and MetOp-C is expected to launch some time between 2016 and 2018.

Each MetOp is packed with sensors from Europe, the US, Canada and France that are designed to monitor everything from atmospheric humidity to wind speeds over the ocean to levels of ozone and solar activity.

It shares eight instruments with its partner NOAA satellites, including microwave sounding units, very high-resolution radiometers, a search and rescue processor/repeater and a high-resolution infrared radiation sensor.

It also carries an Advanced Scatterometer, the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME), and the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), the most accurate infrared sounding interferometer currently in orbit.

It can scan the atmosphere and measure the temperature and humidity to within 1C and relative 10 per cent respectively for every horizontal kilometre of the air column.

“These crucial instruments will be used for weather forecasting and to help us all gain a better understanding of the Earth’s systems,” said Gene Martin, POES Project instrument manager.

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.