Space Industry and Business News  
TECH SPACE
Development Of Meteosat Third Generation To Start

Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) imager and sounder satellites. The space segment will include four MTG-I imaging and two MTG-S sounding satellites. Credits: ESA /P. Carril
by Staff Writers
Paris, France (ESA) Nov 19, 2010
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 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.

The series will comprise six satellites: four MTG-I imaging and two MTG-S sounding satellites. The two types will be positioned over the same longitude in their geostationary orbits.

The sounding element, which also carries the Sentinel-4 payload for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme as a guest payload, is a key innovation.

For the first time, Meteosat satellites will not only image weather systems, but also analyse the atmosphere layer by layer and provide deeper insight into the complexities of its chemical composition.

The first MTG-I satellite is expected in late 2017, with the first MTG-S following in early 2019.

With the go-ahead now in place, the resulting consortium sees Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor and responsible for the MTG-I imaging satellite, including the primary Flexible Combined Imager. OHB is prime for the MTG-S satellite, supported by Astrium (DE) as the System Architect. The Infrared Sounding Instrument will be developed by Kayser Threde.



Share This Article With Planet Earth
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit
YahooMyWebYahooMyWeb GoogleGoogle FacebookFacebook



Related Links
ESA Meteosat
Space Technology News - Applications and Research



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


TECH SPACE
Biggest satellite antenna launched
Reston, Va. (UPI) Nov 15, 2010
A U.S. satellite carrying the biggest commercial reflector antenna ever put into space has been successfully launched, it backers say. The mesh antenna on the Skyterra-1 satellite, launched successfully from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on Sunday, is 72 feet across, the BBC reported Monday. The antenna will relay cellphone and data signals for a start-up company called LightSquared. ... read more







TECH SPACE
Stanford Students Fly In Zero Gravity To Protect Satellites From Tiny Meteoroids

FASTRAC Team Ready To Enjoy Launch

Development Of Meteosat Third Generation To Start

News Corp. set to unveil iPad newspaper, 'The Daily'

TECH SPACE
Codan Receives JITC Certification For 2110 HF Manpack

Northrop Grumman Bids for Marine Corps Common Aviation CnC

DSP Satellite System Celebrates 40 Years

ManTech Awarded US Army Contract To Provide ECCS In Afghanistan

TECH SPACE
Ball Aerospace STPSat-2 Satellite Launches Aboard STP-S26 Mission

Resourcesat-2 Satellite Launch In January

Ukraine Delivers Taurus II Launch Vehicle's First Stage To US

Ball Aerospace's First Standard Interface Vehicle Set To Launch

TECH SPACE
New Simulator Offers Ability To Record And Replay GLONASS And GPS

Russia To Launch New Generation Satellite In 2013

SkyTraq Introduces New GLONASS/GPS Receiver

SES To Contribute To Galileo Operations

TECH SPACE
Airbus CEO takes dive as A380 has issues

Air China announces 4.49 billion-dollar Airbus deal

Embraer signs 1.5-billion-dollar deal with China's AVIC

Lawsuit looms for EADS over A380: lawyers

TECH SPACE
Caltech Physicists Demonstrate A Four-Fold Quantum Memory

Building A Racetrack Memory

Microsoft sues Motorola over 'excessive' royalty demands

Motorola fires back against Microsoft in patent dispute

TECH SPACE
Climate Change On The Go

Redrawing Our Borders

Art on planetary scale shines spotlight on climate change

Google agrees to delete Street View data in Britain

TECH SPACE
A Technology Solution To Hungarian Disaster Relief With DeconGel

Hungary promises full compensation for toxic mud victims

Victims of Hungarian toxic spill to hold off protest

Saudi faces daunting task of post-hajj cleanup


The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement