Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p37.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p35.

p36.

form part of ESA's contribution to the USA led International Space Station. As one of many passengers, EUMETSAT would have very little control over the programme. EUMETSAT needed to decide whether, in the circumstances, it was willing to pay for instruments to fly on the platform.

The Long-Term Plan cautioned: "A large number of difficult technical, political and financial issues have yet to be resolved (about ESA's plans for polar orbit) ...there are many competing interests involved and many compromises will be necessary between the different disciplines. There is already controversy concerning orbital heights and equator crossing times." This passage proved to be prophetic.

Despite the uncertainty, the Long-Term Plan advocated a prominent role for EUMETSAT in determining the mission that should fly in polar orbit. Having dealt with the space segment, the plan turned to the equally significant ground segment. As far as meteorologists are concerned, if the ground segment is not optimum, the satellite is of limited value no matter how sophisticated the space technology. Arguing for a high level of involvement in ground segments, the plan draws attention to the execution of its objectives specified in EUMETSAT's Convention, namely, "the development of space meteorology techniques and meteorological observing systems using satellites that may lead to improved services at optimum cost". One suggestion for early action was that the Meteorological Information Extraction Centre (MIEC) should move from its then current location at ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) to EUMETSATs new headquarters when they were built (see chapter 5).

As seen from EUMETSATs perspective, the problem was that the team working at the MIEC was scientifically isolated within ESOC, whereas within EUMETSAT they would be in contact with meteorologists. Any pressures they experienced would be as a result of operational requirements. The plan said, "The operational extraction of meteorological products from Meteosat image data is an anomaly within ESA and there are strong scientific, technical and financial arguments for suggesting that the MIEC tasks be performed directly by EUMETSAT...". Recalling the debates of ten years earlier it was agreed only with reluctance that ESA should conduct the meteorological processing because there was no other suitable alternative.

When evaluating the Long-Term Plan in June 1987, the STG endorsed the idea of moving the MIEC to EUMETSAT's new headquarters. They recognised that such a move would be "a driving factor" in the entire Long-Term Plan since it involved the concept that EUMETSAT would not only have a coordination role in space-based meteorology but would also run operational activities. The STG saw the move as a prelude for a similar arrangement for the follow-on programme to the Meteosat operational series⁹. In the event, discussion about whether the MIEC should move to EUMETSAT was overtaken by

9 - When the Scientific and Technical Group evaluated the Long-Term Plan, the follow-on to Meteosat was assumed to be the Meteosat Second Generation programme. It was not for another year that the need for the Meteosat Transition Programme became obvious.

SEE ALSO| |

1. Meteorologists shed political shackles, a review of Declan Murphy's history of the first 25 years of EUMETSAT (2011), by Helen Gavaghan.

2. An interview in 2010 with Dr Tillman Mohr, a special advisor to the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organisation, in Science, People & Politics.

eChapter| |TOP

Contents

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Ch.1

Ch.2

Ch.3

Ch.4

Ch.5

Ch.6

Ch.7

Ch.8

The History of EUMETSAT is available in English and French from EUMETSAT©.
First printed 2001. ISBN 92-9110-040-4

Eumetsat meteorology meteorological artificial satellites
European Space Agency weather climate policy politics history