Watch the replay of the Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 pre-launch press briefing held on 5 December 2022. Speakers include Simonetta Cheli, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes; Phil Evans, Director General of Eumetsat; Bertrand Denis, Vice President Observation and Science at Thales Alenia Space and Simon Keogh, Head of Space Applications and Nowcasting Research & Development at the UK Met Office.

MTG-I1 is scheduled to be launched on 13 December on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. It is the first of six satellites that form the full MTG system, which will provide critical data for weather forecasting over the next 20 years. In full operations, the mission will comprise two MTG-I satellites and one MTG Sounding (MTG-S) satellites working in tandem.

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.