* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: MetOp-B satellite

Blobrana · L

Europe's next weather satellite gears up for launch

Following the safe arrival of the MetOp-B weather satellite in Kazakhstan, the sophisticated craft is now being carefully assembled and tested before launch on 23 May. MetOp-B will provide essential data for weather forecasting and climate monitoring.
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Blobrana · L

Astrium: Metop-B on the road to the launch site

Metop-B, the European operational polar orbiting weather satellite designed and manufactured by Astrium, recently left the clean room at the European space industry leaders site in Toulouse. Metop-B was prepared for shipping to the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where a Soyuz launcher will place it in orbit with Starsem. The target launch date is 23 May 2012.
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Blobrana · L

Metop-B launch date set for 23 May

On that date, after lift-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Metop-B satellite will be delivered by a Soyuz 2.1a launcher to an 817 km high, sun-synchronous orbit.
Metop-B will join Metop-A to continue the service provided since 15 May 2007 by Europe's first polar-orbiting meteorological satellite for at least another five years. This service delivers critical input data to the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models exploited by National Meteorological Services to produce forecasts up to 10 days and safety warnings at shorter range. Metop data are also essential for the newcasting of high impact weather at higher latitudes, as well as for climate monitoring applications.
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Blobrana · L

MetOp-B module passes crucial vacuum test

The Payload Module of ESA's latest meteorological satellite, MetOp-B, has been hauled out of the largest vacuum chamber in Europe: its ability to operate in the harsh conditions of space has been proved.
After more than a month of testing in ESA's Large Space Simulator (LSS) at ESTEC in the Netherlands, MetOp-B's Payload Module was lifted out of the vacuum chamber on 28 July.
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