Council takes steps to implement the EPS-SG and Jason-CS programmes
In the presence of Dr Stephen Volz, Assistant Administrator for NOAA Satellite and Information services, the EUMETSAT Council took important decisions for the implementation of the EPS-Second Generation (EPS-SG) and Jason-Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) programmes, both approved this summer and implemented in cooperation with the United States.
05 November 2024
03 December 2015
Following the approval of the EUMETSAT EPS-SG programme last June, the Director-General, Mr Alain Ratier, and Dr Stephen Volz, Assistant Administrator for NOAA Satellite and Information Services, signed the agreement on the Joint Polar System (JPS) during the Council session on 2 December. The Joint Polar System involves EUMETSAT and NOAA polar-orbiting satellites (Metop-SG and JPSS) and a shared ground segment, which include European and American high latitude ground stations.
In this context, the Council also approved a contract which will secure the infrastructure and site support required at Svalbard, Spitsbergen, to host and exploit the EUMETSAT ground stations providing Telemetry Tracking and Control (TT&C) and payload data acquisition for all satellites of the Joint Polar System.
After the entry into force of the optional Jason-CS programme on 9 September, the Council welcomed Norway as the 13th Participating State, which increased the coverage of the financial envelope of the programme to 93.07%. In addition, the Council approved the cooperation arrangement to be signed with ESA for the implementation of the programme.
Jason-CS is EUMETSAT’s contribution to the development and implementation of the cooperative Jason-CS/Sentinel-6 mission, involving also ESA, the European Union through its Copernicus programme and the United States, through NASA and NOAA. Together with Jason-3, planned to be launched in January 2016, this high precision ocean altimetry mission will extend until 2030 the sea level measurements accumulated by previous Jason missions. It will thus deliver invaluable information on climate change and its impacts in support of mitigation and adaptation policies expected to be approved by the ongoing COP 21.
The Council also extended the contracts of Livio Mastroddi, Director of Operations, and Yves Buhler, Director of Technical and Scientific Support, for a period of another five years.
