About ESA
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.
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Space in Member States
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
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Portugal
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Science & Exploration
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
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Enabling & Support
Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Forecasting the weather from geostationary orbit
Hovering in a fixed position 36,000 km above the equator, the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) mission is designed to deliver a rapid stream of data for enhanced weather forecasting.
The animation features an MTG-Imager satellite. The MTG system will span more than 20 years and hence comprises six satellites, four MTG-I and two sounding satellites, MTG-S. In full operations, the mission will comprise two MTG-I satellites and one MTG-S satellites working in tandem. The remaining satellites will eventually replace those in the first set.
The MTG-I satellites carry two completely new instruments, a Flexible Combined Imager and Europe’s first Lightning Imager, to deliver high-quality data for better weather forecasting.
The Flexible Combined Imager has more spectral channels and is capable of imaging in higher resolution compared to current Meteosat Second Generation’s Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared instrument.
The Lightning Imager offers a completely new capability for European meteorological satellites. It will continuously monitor more than 80% of the Earth disc for lightning discharges, taking place either between clouds or between clouds and the ground.
The MTG-I satellites also carry two smaller payloads for data collection from remote science beacons and for search and rescue by detecting emergency beacons.
