- October 27, 2006
- Posted by: EARSC
- Category: Members News
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Europe has been using its famous Meteosat weather-forecasting satellites for 28 years now. These satellites have now been joined by MetOp, the first in a new generation of meteorological satellites, designed to provide a closer view of the atmosphere from low earth orbit, delivering data that will improve global weather prediction and enhance our understanding of climate change.
The MetOp-A, the first of three satellites developed jointly by the European Space Agency and the European Meteorological Satellite Organization (EUMESAT), was successfully launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on 19 October. Since then the systems developed by GMV for this satellite have been working flat-out.
GMV has been involved in the project almost from the word go and has now built up a long track record of participation in development of key systems and subsystems of the satellite.
Pride of place goes to its involvement in two of the satellite??s key onboard instrument processors, the GOME-2 and GRAS, the former designed to probe the atmosphere for profiles of ozone concentrations and the latter to derive atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles. GMV??s specific remit was to develop the prototypes of both processors and also the sensor-performance evaluation and verification tools. For GRAS, GMV has also developed the operational processing system from level 0 to level 1b.
GMV has also provided the mission analysis for the different mission phases, the flight dynamics system and the precise orbit determination system. Lastly, the satellite??s mission-planning system is based on flexplan, the mission-planning product line developed by GMV.
These and other systems furnish MetOp with an advanced instrumental capacity and a data emission capacity for detecting serious weather phenomena in their incipient stages. Warnings can therefore be given with much greater notice than before and measures taken more quickly.
(Source GMV)
