14 DAY TRIAL // The European Space Agency agreed to provide crucial launch control services for the two remaining satellites MSG-3 and MSG-4. Under the agreement ESA will provide their services to the European Organisation of Meteorological Satellites to provide control services during the launch and the early orbit phase.
The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, MSG-3 and MSG-4 are scheduled to launch in January 2011 and January 2013 and are not the first satellites to be conducted by ESA into LEOP (launch and early phase). ESA had previous contracts with EUMETSAT, involving other satellites.
The agreement was signed today by Dr Lars Prahm, general director of EUMETSAT and Daele Winters, director of operations and infrastructure at ESA and values 4 million euro and includes the set up of related LEOP ground infrastructure at ESOC. This contract signed today reflects ESA's long-term relationship with EUMETSAT and first class services provided during the launch of MSG-1 and MSG-2. ESOC now controls ten missions which are composed of 13 spacecrafts and ten more which are in preparation.
Though the first satellite to be launched is scheduled for 2011, the preparation will actually begin with a two-year advance.
EUMETSAT is an intergovernmental organisation created through an international convention agreed by a total of 20 European Member States, which fund the programs and are the primary users of the system, and ten other cooperating countries. Its primary objective is the establishment and deployment of meteorological satellites, needed to create short-time forecasts that are very useful in the prediction of severe weather forecasts.
After the launch of the first generation satellite Meteosats in 1977, EUMETSAT started a program to improve the geostationary weather satellites through the second generation of satellites, which are guaranteed to be in space and operational until 2018.
At this moment EUMETSAT is operating multiple satellites, of which Meteosat-8 and -9 over the European and African continents and Meteosat-6 and -7 over the Indian Ocean. MSG is the result of the collaboration between ESA and EUMETSAT and is based in Germany in the town of Darmstadt. The last three satellites were constructed at the expense of EUMETSAT, the first one MSG-1 has been partially paid for, ESA contributing to two-thirds of its cost through a program financed by 13 of the Agency's Member States.