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Ariane 5 will take off normally this Tuesday evening at 9:30 p.m. Paris time, 5:30 p.m. Kourou time in French Guiana, for its 115th mission. Objective: to put into orbit a brand new weather satellite, the first of the 3rd generation. MTG-I 1 was built by a group of industrialists led by Thales Alenia Space. This satellite will considerably improve weather forecasts and rapidly detect extreme phenomena.
With our special correspondent in Kourou in Guyana, Marina of La Moissonniere
Fifty times more images, of better quality and faster, this is what this brand new satellite will provide thanks to two instruments. The FCI first of all, which will send data every ten minutes and even every two minutes and a half in fast mode over Europe. ” We are not yet to have a camera at 36,000 kilometers which takes an image permanently, but two minutes and a half is still very fast says Pierre Armand, MTG program director for Thales Alenia Space. A change when European meteorologists have been working with second-generation satellites for twenty years.
A lightning sensor
Clouds, rain, forest fires, but also sudden phenomena such as storms, which are expected to increase due to climate change, will be analyzed much more finely. Populations can therefore be alerted more quickly, especially since the other instrument on board MTG-I 1 is a lightning sensor.
« It’s a brand new camera that will detect lightning between clouds and lightning that hits the ground, allowing us to see what’s going on inside a thunderstorm, explains Cristian Bank, director of programs at Eumetsat, the organization that manages Europe’s weather satellites. We hope this will help meteorologists understand how severe thunderstorms and downpours develop. »
MTG-I 1 will be joined within two to three years by a twin satellite, then by another equipped with a high-performance sounder, which will capture the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere.
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