The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The first Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1), with the Copernicus Sentinel-4 instrument on board, arrived at Cape Canaveral harbour, US, on 6 May.
Transported on board the cargo ship MN Colibri, the two-week voyage from Bremen across the Atlantic Ocean began on 23 April.
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.
Read full story: MTG-S1 and Sentinel-4 take a step closer to space