Meteosat Second Generation instruments

Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager

The Mission Communication Payload (MCP) on the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) spacecraft contains all antennas and transponders necessary to meet the demanding communication needs of the MSG mission. This includes the acquisition and transmission of SEVIRI and GERB raw data, the delivery of housekeeping telemetry and the relay of messages from data collection platforms, and search and rescue beacons.

Eight of the channels are in the thermal infrared, providing, among other information, permanent data about the temperatures of clouds, land and sea surfaces. Using channels that absorb ozone, water vapour and carbon dioxide enables meteorologists to analyse the characteristics of atmospheric air masses and reconstruct a three-dimensional view of the atmosphere.

The improved horizontal image resolution for the visible light spectral channel (1km as opposed to 2.5km) also helps weather forecasters in detecting and predicting the onset or end of severe weather.

The SEVIRI instrument is manufactured by European industry under the leadership of Astrium SAS in Toulouse, France.

Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget

The Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument is a visible-infrared radiometer for Earth radiation budget studies. The Earth radiation budget represents the overall balance between the incoming energy from the sun and the outgoing thermal and reflected energy from the Earth, and can only be measured from space. 

The accurate measurements of the components of the radiation budget at the top of the atmosphere provide valuable data on reflected solar radiation and thermal radiation emitted by the Earth and atmosphere.

The GERB instrument has two broadband channels: one covering the solar spectrum (0.32 to 4.0µm), the other covering a wider portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (0.32 to 30µm). Together these channels are used to derive the thermal radiation emitted by the Earth in the spectral range 4.0 to 30µm.The GERB broadband channels span the 12 much narrower channels measured by the SEVIRI instrument. GERB fills in the gaps in the thermal radiation spectrum missed by the SEVIRI channels, but measures the thermal radiation at a coarser spatial resolution.

The consortium that developed and is responsible for operating the GERB system includes the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), UK; Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (ICSTM), UK; Met Office Hadley Centre, UK; Leicester University, UK; Koninklijk Meteorologisch Instituut van België (KMI); Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems (AMOS), Belgium, and Leonardo (formerly SELEX Galileo), Italy.

Search And Rescue Repeater

The aim of the search and rescue signal repeater (SARR) is to relay distress signals from users in difficulty to search and rescue centres. The instruments therefore help search and rescue authorities save thousands of lives around the world

Geostationary satellites, such as MSG, continually view large areas of the Earth and can provide near instantaneous alerting from a 406MHz beacon. As part of the Cospas-Sarsat programme, the SARR instrument continuously monitors the Earth and relays any distress signals from 406 MHz beacons within the MSG coverage zone in Europe, Africa and the Atlantic Ocean.

The signals are sent to Geostationary Earth Orbit Local User Terminals (GEOLUTs) and eventually passed on to rescue coordination centres for the rapid organisation of rescue activities.

Search and rescue systems are also carried by satellites in polar Earth orbit, such as the Metop series of satellites, but studies by the USA using the GOES-7 meteorological satellite have shown that geostationary satellites can improve detection times by providing near instantaneous alerts from their coverage zone.

SARR is provided by NOAA and developed by EMS Technologies of Quebec, Canada, under contract to the Canadian Department of National Defense (DND).

Mission Communication Payload

The Mission Communication Payload (MCP) is a subsystem on the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) spacecraft.

MCP contains all antennas and transponders necessary to meet the demanding communication needs of the MSG mission. This includes the acquisition and transmission of SEVIRI and GERB raw data, the delivery of house keeping telemetry and the relay of messages from data collection platforms and search and rescue beacons.

Telemetry, Tracking and Command

The Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) subsystem on the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite enables the spacecraft to receive and demodulate telecommands, to transmit status and data in the form of spacecraft telemetry, and to transpond ranging signals from and to the MSG ground stations.