Meteosat Third Generation Sounder being loaded onto ship

With liftoff scheduled for summer 2025, the first Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1) has departed Bremen, Germany, en route to its launch site at Cape Canaveral, U.S.

Transported aboard the MN Colibri, the satellite, which also embarks instrument, the Copernicus Sentinel-4 instrument left Bremen harbour on 23 April, beginning a two-week voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to Florida.

MTG-S1’s sounder will be first hyperspectral sounding instrument to be placed in geostationary orbit by a European-led mission. It will be positioned about 36 000 km above the equator and will maintain its position relative to Earth, following the same area on the planet’s surface as it rotates below. It will provide coverage of Europe and part of northern Africa on a repeat cycle of 15 minutes, providing meteorologists with a complete weather picture of the region, complementing data on cloud formation and lightning from its sibling MTG-I.

The MTG-S1 satellite hosts the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission which is an ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light spectrometer that captures data every hour to monitor air quality and pollution over Europe and North Africa.