Europe's first weather satellite was Meteosat 1, launched in 1977 and followed by six further Meteosats. This series of geostationary satellites was built by ESA and later operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), an intergovernmental organisation of 18 European states created in 1986.
In 2002,the first Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite, a more advanced design, entered service as Meteosat-8. A second MSG was launched in December 2005.