14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) announced today that they have handed over control of the new MetOp-B weather satellites to the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), which will operate it from now on.
The spacecraft launched into space aboard a Russian-built Soyuz-Fregat delivery system, on September 17. The event took place at the Russian Federal Space Agency's (RosCosmos) Baikonur Cosmodrome.
For the past few days, engineers at the ESA European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, have been working around the clock to make sure that the satellite is working properly.
Now, EUMETSAT is working on commissioning the spacecraft's instruments, including an ultraviolet spectrometer, an advanced scatterometer, an atmospheric sounding instrument, a microwave humidity sounder and an infrared atmospheric sounder.