MetOp

A SPOT heritage service module provides power (via solar array and five batteries for eclipse), attitude and orbit control, thermal regulation and Tracking, Telemetry and Command (TT&C).

An Envisat heritage payload module provides common command and control and power buses for the instruments along with science data acquisition and transmission.

With the exception of Search and Rescue (SARSAT), which is a purely local mission with its own dedicated transmitter, all data from the MetOp Instruments are formatted and multiplexed by the Payload Module and either stored on a solid-state recorder for later transmission via an X-Band antenna, or directly transmitted to local users via High Rate Picture Transmission (HRPT) L-Band antenna.

The high latitude of this station allows the global data stored in the solid state recorder of each satellite to be dumped via X-Band once per orbit.

Additionally, in order to improve timeliness of products, one of the operational satellites dumps the data from the descending part of the orbit over the McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

The control center is connected to the CDA in Svalbard which is used for S-Band ranging and doppler measurements (for orbit determination), acquisition of real-time house keeping telemetry and uplink of telecommands.

Commands for routine operations are generally uplinked at each CDA contact, approximately 36 hours in advance of on-board execution.

It is expected that these new instruments will herald a significant contribution to the ever-growing need for fast and accurate global data to improve numerical weather prediction.

In addition to its meteorological uses, it will provide imagery of land and ocean surfaces as well as search and rescue equipment to aid ships and aircraft in distress.

Before that point, the Met Office received data and started to test and then use it as input to the operational numerical weather prediction runs.

GOME-2, designed by DLR (the German Aerospace Centre) and developed by SELEX Galileo as the successor of ERS-2's GOME (1995), provided coverage of most areas of planet Earth measuring the atmospheric ozone, the distribution of surface ultraviolet radiation, and the amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

[21] These end-of-life disposal operations were initially unplanned, but are deemed necessary after the Iridium-Cosmos collision and Fengyun-1C anti-satellite test have significantly worsened the space debris situation in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Metop-A had its orbit lowered by performing 23 apogee manoeuvres to almost empty its fuel tanks and is expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere within 25 years.

Due to LTAN drift, Metop-B left the reference orbit ground track in October 2023, to ensure phase separation with Metop-C. Metops will be rephased after launch of the first Metop-SG, such that a tandem mission between Metop-SGA1 and Metop-C can be performed to cross calibrate old and new instruments.