The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
By 1983, when this calendar was produced, two Meteosat weather satellites were in orbit: Meteosat-1, launched 23 November 1977, and Meteosat-2, launched 19 June 1981. The poster, in German, shows Meteosat data products in visible, infrared and water vapour wavelengths.
Placed in geostationary orbit at 0 degrees longitude, Meteosat-1 provided a permanent field of view over most of Europe, the whole of Africa, the Middle East and the eastern half of South America - in total over 100 countries.
Image data was transmitted to the Data Acquisition, Telemetry, and Tracking Station, Odenwald, Germany, for relay to the Meteosat Ground Computer System and Meteosat Operations Control centre at ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC).
The first-generation Meteosats provided data 24 hours a day from the three spectral channels of the main instrument; the Meteosat Visible and Infrared Imager (MVIRI), every 30 minutes.
Note: hi-res PDF download file is very large! Please be patient while file is transferred.