Meteosat

The first generation of Meteosat satellites, Meteosat-1 to Meteosat-7, provided continuous and reliable meteorological observations from space to a large user community.

The satellites were manufactured by a consortium COSMOS, with Aérospatiale in its Cannes Mandelieu Space Centre, as Prime, and included Matra, MBB, Selenia Spazio, Marconi Company.

Meteosat Second Generation was designed in response to user requirements to serve the needs of nowcasting applications and numerical weather prediction.

The more frequent and comprehensive data collected by MSG also aids the weather forecaster in the swift recognition and prediction of dangerous weather phenomena such as thunderstorms, fog, and explosive development of small, but intense, depressions, which can lead to devastating wind storms.

Meteosat-8 was retired from operational service on 1 July 2022 and finally decommissioned on 13 October 2022 after twenty years in orbit.

The spacecraft was disposed of in compliance with ISO-24113 guidelines (although not designed with this in mind) having been raised 740km above the geostationary ring and spun down to 20rpm.

Since 20 February 2018, Meteosat-11 provides the main full Earth imagery service over Europe and Africa (with images every 15-minutes).

The MSG-4 commissioning was successfully completed in December 2015 at which time the spacecraft was placed into in-orbit storage as planned, and renamed to Meteosat-11.

MTG preparatory activities started end of 2000 in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), following the decision of the EUMETSAT Council to proceed with a Post-MSG User Consultation Process.

[12] On 19 March 2010, ESA chose Thales Alenia Space for a final negotiation leading to a contract to be signed during June.