![After a two-week journey across the Atlantic Ocean, the first third-generation Meteosat satellite, MTG-I1, is safe and sound in one of the spaceport's clean rooms. Here, satellite engineers will prepare it for liftoff on an Ariane 5 rocket in December. Once in geostationary orbit, this new satellite, which carries two new extremely sensitive instruments, promises to further strengthen European leadership in weather forecasting. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace Europe's newest weather satellite arrives at the launch site](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Europes-newest-weather-satellite-arrives-at-the-launch-site.jpg)
After a two-week journey across the Atlantic Ocean, the first third-generation Meteosat satellite, MTG-I1, is safe and sound in one of the spaceport’s clean rooms. Here, satellite engineers will prepare it for liftoff on an Ariane 5 rocket in December. Once in geostationary orbit, this new satellite, which carries two new extremely sensitive instruments, promises to further strengthen European leadership in weather forecasting. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace
After a two-week voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, the ship carrying the first third-generation Meteosat satellite docked at Pariacabo in French Guiana and the precious cargo was unloaded. Now safe and sound in one of the spaceport’s clean rooms, the satellite’s engineers will prepare it for takeoff on an Ariane 5 rocket in December. Once in geostationary orbit, this new satellite, which carries two new extremely sensitive instruments, promises to further strengthen European leadership in weather forecasting.
The first third-generation Meteosat imager, MTG-I1, together with 10 large containers of support equipment left the south of France on the freighter MN Toucan on September 29 bound for the port of Pariacabo in Kourou, French Guiana.
James Champion, ESA’s MTG-I1 launch campaign manager, said: “The team were delighted to see the ship arrive safely in port and quickly got down to the task of transporting the precious cargo to the airlock at the launch site, where the team cleaned the satellite container before it was moved to the clean room where the MTGI-1 satellite was finally removed from the container.
“We were also pleased to see that the temperature, humidity, shock and swell records showed that our satellite had spent a very comfortable two weeks at sea.”
Now that this brand new weather satellite is safely in the clean room, engineers will perform further checks and begin preparing it for lift-off.
MTG-I1 is the first of six satellites that form the complete MTG system, which will provide critical data for weather forecasting over the next 20 years.
When fully operational, the mission will include two MTG-I satellites and one MTG Sounding (MTG-S) satellite working in tandem.
The remaining satellites will eventually replace those in the first set to ensure data continuity for at least two decades.
![The Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I) satellites carry two brand new instruments that will provide high quality data to improve weather forecasting: a Flexible Combined Imager and Europe's first Lightning Imager. The Flexible Combo Imager has more spectral channels and is capable of imaging in higher resolution compared to the current Meteosat Second Generation Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared instrument. The Lightning Imager offers an entirely new capability for European weather satellites. It will continuously monitor over 80% of the Earth's disk for lightning discharges, occurring either between clouds or between clouds and the ground. This new instrument will detect severe storms in their early stages and will therefore be essential for issuing timely warnings. Its detectors are so sensitive that they will be able to detect relatively weak lightning, even in broad daylight. MTG-I also carries two smaller payloads for collecting data from remote science beacons and for search and rescue by detecting emergency beacons. The complete MTG system will span over 20 years and will therefore consist of six satellites, four MTG-I and two sounder satellites, MTG-S. Credit: ESA/Mlabspace, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Europe's newest weather satellite arrives at the launch site](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/1666110339_311_Europes-newest-weather-satellite-arrives-at-the-launch-site.jpg)
The Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I) satellites carry two brand new instruments that will provide high quality data to improve weather forecasting: a Flexible Combined Imager and Europe’s first Lightning Imager. The Flexible Combo Imager has more spectral channels and is capable of imaging in higher resolution compared to the current Meteosat Second Generation Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared instrument. The Lightning Imager offers an entirely new capability for European weather satellites. It will continuously monitor over 80% of the Earth’s disk for lightning discharges, occurring either between clouds or between clouds and the ground. This new instrument will detect severe storms in their early stages and will therefore be essential for issuing timely warnings. Its detectors are so sensitive that they will be able to detect relatively weak lightning, even in broad daylight. MTG-I also carries two smaller payloads for collecting data from remote science beacons and for search and rescue by detecting emergency beacons. The complete MTG system will span over 20 years and will therefore consist of six satellites, four MTG-I and two sounder satellites, MTG-S. Credit: ESA/Mlabspace, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The MTG mission follows the success of the first and second generation Meteosat satellites, but will offer faster, higher resolution data and completely new data to boot.
The MTG-I satellites carry two entirely new instruments to provide high quality data to improve weather forecasting: a flexible combined imager and Europe’s first lightning imager.
The Flexible Combo Imager has more spectral channels and is capable of imaging in higher resolution compared to the current Meteosat Second Generation Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared instrument.
The Lightning Imager offers an entirely new capability for European weather satellites. It will continuously monitor over 80% of the Earth’s disk for lightning discharges, occurring either between clouds or between clouds and the ground.
This new instrument will detect severe storms in their early stages and will therefore be essential for issuing timely warnings. Its detectors are so sensitive that they will be able to detect relatively weak lightning, even in broad daylight.
The MTG-I satellites also carry two smaller payloads for collecting data from remote scientific beacons and for search and rescue by detecting emergency beacons.
With liftoff scheduled for December, MTG-I1 is set to pioneer this extraordinary new mission.
MTG is a cooperation between ESA and Eumetsat. ESA is responsible for the definition and implementation of MTG satellites and the procurement of recurrent equipment, while Eumetsat is in charge of the operation of spacecraft throughout their lifetime.
Preparing the MTG-I1 weather satellite for launch
Provided by the European Space Agency
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