Arianespace\u2019s Ariane 5 G will be in action on December 21, following official clearance to go ahead with the launch of the Meteosat Second Generation spacecraft (MSG-2) \u2013 Europe\u2019s newest meteorological satellite. <\/p>\n
The go-head was granted after engineers confirmed the November 16 launch of an Ariane 5 ECA on Flight 167 went to plan, with no outstanding issues with the vehicle.\n<\/p>\n
The launch of the Ariane 5 G will also place the INSAT 4A \u2013 a telecommunications satellite \u2013 into orbit for the Indian Space Research Organisation <\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The MSG-2 has spent 117 days being stored at the European spaceport in French Guiana. Work began on de-storing and preparing the second Meteosat Second Generation (MSG-2) spacecraft for flight on 31 October. MSG-2 launch campaign activities were officially re-started on 10 November. <\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n MSG-2 had been shipped to Europe\u2019s spaceport on 21 June. It was placed in storage following extensive testing confirmed the functionality of the platform and instruments following transport. <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018The first of these (launched as MSG-1, since renamed Meteosat-8) was launched in August 2002 and declared operational in January 2004. With the launch of MSG-2, two MSG satellites will be functional in geostationary orbit, the operational one being at 0 degrees longitude which is above equatorial West Africa, the other being on stand-by with 10 degrees of separation, to ensure continuity of service into the future.<\/font> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018European weather forecasters plus climate and environment researchers are already benefiting from the advanced products and images provided by Meteosat-8. The data generated by its 12 spectral channels provide 20 times the information of its predecessors. <\/p>\n \u2018EUMETSAT is currently operating Meteosat-6, Meteosat-7 and -8 over Europe and Africa, and Meteosat-5 over the Indian Ocean. The data, products and services from these satellites developed by ESA for EUMETSAT \u00e2\u20ac\u201c make a significant contribution to weather forecasting and the monitoring of climate change.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arianespace\u2019s Ariane 5 G will be in action on December 21, following official clearance to go ahead with the launch of the Meteosat Second Generation spacecraft (MSG-2) \u2013 Europe\u2019s newest meteorological satellite. The go-head was granted after engineers confirmed the November 16 launch of an Ariane 5 ECA on Flight 167 went to plan, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[],"class_list":["post-42225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42225"}],"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=42225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\u2018The larger, more powerful Meteosat Second Generation design takes images at more wavelengths and at shorter intervals than its parents, making it particularly suitable for short-term forecasting of sudden troublesome weather phenomena, such as snow, thunderstorms and fog,\u2019 noted an ESA (European Space Agency) release, <\/font><\/p>\n