....Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites for Eumetsat, the European meteorological satellite organization. Thales Alenia Space is prime contractor for this large-scale program, in partnership with German company OHB. The first phase of this program started in November 2010, and has now been definitively approved by the ESA industrial policy committee.

Thales Alenia Space has built Meteosat satellites since the beginning of geostationary weather forecasting systems in Europe, more than 30 years ago. ESA and Eumetsat issued a request for proposals for the development of the third-generation satellites, and Thales Alenia Space was able to propose industrial partnerships meeting ESA's geographical return rule, from both the qualitative and quantitative standpoints. The Thales Alenia Space's proposal not only delivers the performance expected by users, but also underpins the development of innovative solutions and ensures competitive prices. The development of the satellites and their instruments started in November 2010, resulting in an initial consolidation of the system definition, and a selection by competitive bidding of the industrial team in charge of producing components and subassemblies for the different modules. As of early 2012, most of the industrial partners have now been selected. The program is now on track and in 2012, the detailed design will be validated by Preliminary Design Reviews (PDR) for the system, instruments and platform.

The MTG program comprises six satellites: four MTG-1 imaging and two MTG-S sounding satellites. The imaging satellites will deliver one image every ten minutes, and will operate in 16 bandwidths. They will be used to determine temperature and humidity profiles in a vertical section of the atmosphere. In addition, the satellites will carry an extra ultraviolet sounding instrument, within the scope of Europe's GMES program (Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security), to analyze the constituent gases in the atmosphere. With enhanced spatial resolution, continuous observation capability, and complementary imaging/sounding data, the Meteosat Third Generation satellites will considerably improve the quality and reliability of meteorological models and weather forecasts. Thales Alenia Space company information link.