On 17 July 2006 at 16:30 GMT, a new-generation European weather satellite will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome: MetOp, a spacecraft very different from the well-known Meteosat satellites.
(The launch was cancelled and moved to 19 October 2006)
Orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 840 km rather than 36000 km, its mission is complementary to Meteosat: these are tracking fast weather changes, whereas MetOp scrutinises longer-term weather developments and climate change.
MetOp is also putting international cooperation on a new level: the satellite houses state-of-the-art new European instruments alongside tried-and-tested ones from US satellites. MetOp fits seamlessly into a global system of polar orbiting weather satellites.
Today's transmission in the form of a Video News Release provides all images necessary for the news coverage of the forthcoming launch, including soundbites by ESA Project Manager Peter Edwards and Eumetsat Programme Manager Marc Cohen.

MetOp VNR
A-Roll
10:00:30 (GVs Soyuz launch, animations MetOp in orbit) On July 17 th, the first of a new type of European weather satellite will be launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. MetOp will blast off onboard a Russian Soyuz launcher at 16.30 GMT. After about an hour and a half, itíll separate from the launcherís upper stage and pass into orbit just 840 kilometres above the Earth. This is a low orbit for a European weather satellite ñ the Meteosat system works from an altitude of 36,000km.
10:01:10 (GVs MetOp at Baikonur) But a low orbit is just one of the things thatís different about the MetOp system. Over a decade in the making, it looks set to revolutionise Europeís role as a provider of global weather information.
10:01:20 SOT Peter Edwards, MetOp Project Manager, ESA (overlay GVs MetOp at Baikonur): ëWe started in 1995 or so, with our preparatory studies, and the main development phase started in 1998. Weíve had a team in ESA of up to 40 people working on it ñ in indus