Launch of new European weather satellite, 3D map of atmosphere

The innovative European meteorological satellite Mtg-S1, capable of mapping the atmosphere in 3D, is ready for launch: the departure of the mission that also has on board the new Sentinel-4 mission of the Copernicus program is scheduled for tonight at 23:03 Italian time from the Cape Canveral base in Florida with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Acronym for Meteosat Third Generation, Mtg-S1 is the new satellite born from the collaboration between the European Space Agency and the European Agency for Meteorological Satellites Eumetsat, designed to improve and profoundly innovate weather forecasts.

Mtg-S1 is the second of the Mtg family and has on board an innovative instrument called Sounder capable of capturing temperature, humidity and wind data producing a 3D map of the entire atmosphere. Data that will be integrated with those already arriving with the first Mtg launched on December 13, 2022 which instead has on board a very sensitive 'lightning meter', the Lightning Imager.

It is produced by the Italian Leonardo and is capable of identifying the flashes produced by any lightning from 36 thousand kilometers away, even during the day and inside clouds. A family of satellites that sees a significant Italian participation, with Thales Alenia Space, and various Italian sites involved, in the role of industrial leader of the program in collaboration with Ohb, and with Telespazio - a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%) - which from the Fucino Space Center in Abruzzo will manage the operations of the orbit and the final positioning. Mtg will be positioned in geostationary orbit, continuously observing the terrestrial hemisphere of Europe and Africa, and on board it will also have the Sentinel-4 mission of the Copernicus program, managed by ESA and the European Commission. Thanks to a spectrometer, Sentinel-4 will be able to take a sort of photograph of the air quality of the entire hemisphere every hour, measuring the quantity of pollutants such as ozone, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde.