Europe’s next fleet of meteorological satellites is set to debut in 2017, following today’s signing of the development contract. While Meteosat Third Generation will ensure full continuity with the current Meteosat satellite family, it will also introduce significant improvements.

International partners are looking ahead to Europe's second polar-orbiting mission dedicated to operational meteorology – MetOp-B is set for launch next May.

A contract has been signed that will allow the work to start on a new generation of weather satellites for Europe.

Europe is launching its next-generation of polar orbiting weather satellites in a two-spacecraft configuration.

European nations were granted only a few more weeks to find funding for a key Earth observation satellite.