It is easy to take our daily weather forecasts for granted, but the social and economic benefits of accurate forecasts are huge – and this is largely thanks to satellites. Europe’s fleet of weather watchers includes two families, MetOp and Meteosat, which use different orbits to provide complementary information.Next-generation weather satellites, such as MetOp Second Generation and Meteosat Third Generation significantly improve on current capabilities, while building on the long-standing successful cooperation between ESA and Eumetsat.