Oct 19 2006
From The Space Library
ESA and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) launched the Meteorological Operational Satellite A (MetOP-A), Europe’s first polar-orbiting weather satellite. MetOP-A, which represented a major advance in meteorological capabilities, launched on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 16:28 (UT). Engineers had designed MetOP-A to quickly provide data of unprecedented accuracy and resolution, covering weather and climate variables ranging from temperature to concentrations of ozone gas. The satellite was the first of three scheduled for launch over the next 14 years. Collectively, the three satellites would ultimately form the space-based portion of EUMETSAT’s Polar System (EPS). Polar-orbiting satellites were capable of highly detailed Earth observation, because they orbited at relatively low altitudes—often at altitudes of 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles), as opposed to the 36,000-kilometer-altitude (approximately 22,400-mile-altitude) orbits of many geostationary satellites. The EPS was Europe’s contribution to a cooperative venture with NOAA, which had provided users worldwide with meteorological data from polar orbit for nearly four decades. In addition, NOAA and France’s CNES had provided five of MetOP-A’s 10 instruments.
ESA, “MetOP at a Glance: Overview,” 16 November 2006, http://www.esa.int/esaLP/SEMN1FAATME_LPmetop_0.html (accessed 2 April 2010); Spacewarn Bulletin, no. 636, 1 November 2006, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx636.html (accessed 2 April 2010).
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