Meteorology, Meteorological, History

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HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p52.

HISTORY OF EUMETSAT, p50.

p51.

EUMETSAT's Council and Secretariat and it became the catalyst that set in motion events leading to EUMETSAT assuming full control of its own ground segment, including routine operations. In Morgan's own words: "The Director was speechless, the Secretariat amazed. There was no need to make a full analysis. The Council was asked to go into private session [excluding the ESA observer] and shown the proposal. Case closed. EUMETSAT could certainly do the job for far less. There was henceforth no question. EUMETSAT would not use ESA for satellite control functions or, of course, for meteorological processing."

There is no record of the closed session in Council documents, nor is there an explicit reference to such a decision by Council. But Morgan's account does make sense of the record, which shows that EUMETSAT subsequently undertook considerable work to develop ground segment ideas, despite considerable controversy between its delegates about the nature of the ground segment.

With hindsight, it is not surprising that the ground segment would prompt a fairly profound disagreement between the two agencies at some stage. The potential for this issue to become divisive had existed from the preEUMETSAT days when meteorologists had been concerned about the effectiveness of the extraction of meteorological products from satellite data. So, while the high cost of ground segment refurbishment and ongoing operational support shocked the delegates, these high costs also gave them a legitimate reason to do what many of them wished to do anyway, that is, to study alternatives that would give EUMETSAT greater control of the ground segment.

As it happened, the Secretariat had in parallel also been preparing a plan of activities for the MTP, which it presented for approval to the eleventh Council in December 1989. This plan included: exploring alternative approaches to procuring a launch and ground and space segments, an independent evaluation of the needs of the ground segment, and transfer of the MIEC to EUMETSAT. ESA's brief proposal simply made it all the more certain that the EUMETSAT Council would formally endorse the Secretariat's plan of action. This they did.

During 1990, both ESA and the Secretariat established in outline the requirements for the MTP space and ground segments, and at the end of the year the Secretariat was able to propose a Resolution to the thirteenth Council establishing the MTP. The Council agreed that the programme should go ahead in two slices and have a total financial envelope of 280 MECU, covering the cost of the satellite, its ground segment, launch and operations for five years. Expenditure on the first slice, costing 110 MECU (one hundred and ten, an insertion for clarity by the site editor on 29th August 2012, reading text against original in print) at 1989 economic conditions, was authorised at the meeting. It comprised the manufacture of one new satellite, advance activities for a second satellite (in case one were needed), and definition of the ground segment and programme management.

So, 18 months after the first serious inkling that an interim satellite would be needed to bridge the gap between the two generations of the Meteosats, the Council gave the go-ahead for the programme and consequently increased the workload of an already overstretched Secretariat.

Aware of mounting pressures from the transition programme as well as MSG and the

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.

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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

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