The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the selection of a prime contractor for its Aeolus-2 weather satellite program and is preparing to issue an initial \u20ac70 million contract to begin the next phase of development, according to project officials.<\/p>\n
Aeolus-2 is intended as the operational successor to the original Aeolus mission, which was built by Airbus Defence and Space and was deorbited in early 2023. The new mission is being developed jointly with the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) as part of the European Polar System program.<\/p>\n
The satellites will carry a Doppler Wind Lidar instrument designed to measure global wind profiles from the lower atmosphere up to the stratosphere at altitudes of roughly 40 kilometers. The technology is expected to improve weather forecasting and climate monitoring by providing high-resolution wind data over oceans and remote regions where measurements are scarce.<\/p>\n
EUMETSAT plans to operate two spacecraft launched sequentially, each with an expected lifetime of between 5.5 and 7 years. Together they are intended to provide more than a decade of continuous observations. The first satellite, weighing about 2.5 tonnes, is currently scheduled for launch in 2034.<\/p>\n
Although ESA has not formally announced the contractor selection, an Aeolus-2 project manager said the agency\u2019s Industrial Policy Committee approved the next development phase during a meeting in Paris on Jan. 28. The committee authorized an Authorisation To Proceed (ATP) worth \u20ac70 million, enabling the chosen prime contractor to begin Phase B2 activities, with project kickoff planned for the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n
The identity of the selected contractor has not been disclosed. Airbus Defence and Space, which led development of the original Aeolus spacecraft, is widely viewed as a potential candidate. However, any award could be influenced by ongoing industry consolidation plans, including a proposed merger of space businesses from Airbus, Thales and Leonardo under a project known as Bromo.<\/p>\n
Observers say ESA may seek assurances that such restructuring would not disrupt the mission\u2019s schedule, given the importance of maintaining continuity in Europe\u2019s atmospheric observation capabilities.<\/p>\n
The Aeolus program has been credited with demonstrating the feasibility of space-based wind lidar measurements, and its successor is expected to transition the technology into routine operational use for meteorological services across Europe and beyond.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the selection of a prime contractor for its Aeolus-2 weather satellite program and is preparing to issue an initial \u20ac70 million contract to begin the next phase of development, according to project officials. Aeolus-2 is intended as the operational successor to the original Aeolus mission, which was built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6993,5902,6221,6994,159,246,1059,244,6995,831,942,6996,5905,943,2515],"class_list":["post-20541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-aeolus-2","tag-airbus-defence-and-space","tag-climate-monitoring","tag-doppler-wind-lidar","tag-earth-observation","tag-esa","tag-eumetsat","tag-europe","tag-european-polar-system","tag-european-space-agency","tag-leonardo","tag-meteorology","tag-paris","tag-thales","tag-weather-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}