Metop weather satellite lifts off
October 20, 2006
Metop, Europe's most sophisticated weather and climate satellite, has launched successfully from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The satellite should improve weather forecasts, and give scientists the data they need to refine climate models.
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted Metop off the launch pad at 1628 GMT.
Launch has been thwarted on five occasions due to technical hitches and bad weather - and it was even dropped while being loaded on to a train.
The spacecraft was set to go into orbit from Kazakhstan on Wednesday, but the launch had to be scrubbed due to strong winds at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
On Tuesday, an error in commands sent to the modernised Soyuz-2 rocket forced controllers to postpone the launch.
The satellite will now slip into a 850-km (531-mile) orbit around the Earth's poles.
The platform is a joint project of the European Space Agency (Esa) and Eumetsat, the intergovernmental organisation charged by European member states with operating a series of orbiting weather observatories.
"The spacecraft's in very good shape, it's a big relief," Mikael Rattenborg, director of operations for Eumetsat told BBC News.
The spacecraft will now spend the rest of the week deploying its solar arrays and configuring its control systems.
Metop has eight instruments to gather a range of data about the planet's atmospheric and surface conditions.
It has a further three instruments that will be used to assess the space environment and relay data.
Day and night, Metop will monitor temperature, humidity, wind velocity and ozone cover across the whole globe.
"The instruments on board will provide numerical weather predictions to national meteorological services in Europe and around the world," said Mr Rattenborg.
"Some of the instruments have flown before, but there are innovative new ones that will provide data for weather predictions of unprecedented accuracy."
Dr Stephen Briggs, head of Esa's Earth Observation Science and Applications Department, said: "This is a huge step forward for Europe.
"Metop's technology will be the benchmark for future systems for the next 20 years. It continues a historical series of data collected by previous Esa satellites but takes brand new measurements with a new set of instruments.
"In particular, the French-built Iasi instrument - the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer - will give us three-dimensional temperature, pressure and atmospheric chemistry soundings that are much better than anything we've had before."
The satellite weighs more than four tonnes and measures almost 18m (60ft) with its solar wing unfurled.
Metop is a first for Europe in that it circles the Earth via the poles.
It is the first of three near-identical platforms. The two follow-ons will be launched over the next 10 years to ensure there is continuity of service. The programme is costing 2.4 bn euros (£1.6bn; $3bn).
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