Europe’s next weather satellite gears up for launch

Europe's next weather satellite gears up for launch Following the safe arrival of the MetOp-B weather satellite in Kazakhstan, the sophisticated craft is now being carefully assembled and tested before launch on 23 May. MetOp-B will provide essential data for weather forecasting and climate monitoring. Developed as a joint undertaking between ESA and Eumetsat, the MetOp programme comprises a series of three identical satellites for continuous observations until 2020. The first in the series, MetOp-A, was launched in 2006 and marked a new era in operational meteorology - it was Europe's first weather satellite to orbit Earth from pole to pole. It is now time to launch the second in the series: MetOp-B. The satellites carry a host of sensitive instruments to provide key information on a wide range of variables such as temperature and humidity, wind speed and direction over oceans, ozone and other atmospheric gases for numerical weather prediction and climate monitoring. With MetOp-A still in service, the two satellites will orbit in tandem, increasing the wealth of data even further.