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Satellite User Readiness Navigator (SATURN)

Preparing for the next generation of meteorological satellites

MTG

MTG Basics

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Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) is EUMETSAT’s next generation of geostationary satellites, following on from earlier successful missions.

This next generation, following on from Meteosat Second Generation, provides an evolution of the imaging service, including a new Lightning Imager, and a state-of-the-art atmospheric sounding service providing measurements in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum.

To achieve these services, MTG will see the launch of six new geostationary satellites, with the first satellite (MTG-I1) having been launched in December 2022. The satellite series is based on 3-axis platforms and comprise:

  • Four Imaging Satellites (MTG-I) (20 years of operational services expected)
  • Two Sounding Satellites (MTG-S) (15.5 years of operational services expected)

The full operational configuration will consist of two MTG-I satellites operating in tandem, one scanning Europe and Africa every 10 minutes, and the other scanning only Europe every 2.5 minutes, and one MTG-S satellite.

Further details on the instruments onboard the MTG satellites, can be found in the user guides linked below

Ground Segment

The Meteosat Third Generation Ground Segment will acquire data from all the MTG satellites, and generate, archive and distribute the products. It will also provide the capabilities to command and control the satellites and the ground segment itself.

The ground segment consists of:

  • The Telemetry, Tracking and Control (TT&C) ground stations — the TT&C interface between the Space Segment and the Mission Control Centre.
  • The Mission Data Acquisition (MDA) ground stations — the payload data interface between the Space Segment and the Mission Control Centre.
  • The Mission Operations Facility (MOF) — provides functions for the preparation, planning and operation of the system, including satellite and mission operations and flight dynamics.
  • The Instrument Level 1 Data Processing facilities (IDPF-I and IDPF-S) — these extract the measurements from the sensors. They also perform a series of functions for the generation of level 1b data and the processing of level 1c data.
  • Level 2 Processing Facility (L2PF), for the extraction of centrally generated products.

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MTG User Readiness Planning

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The EUMETSAT User Portal is now the one-stop-shop for all user information related to MTG. The Meteosat Third Generation section includes an overview of the mission and data services (0 degree, data collection service, rapid scanning service, sounding service); MTG Data collection (when closer to release); resources including user guides, related documents, software and code and service status updates, and MTG data news and events.

In order for users to prepare for MTG, format familiarisation test data packages are being released. A Product Format Specification document describing the content of each product is also released with each test data package. For more information on test data, see the MTG test data user guide.

For more information on timelines etc, see the MTG in operations user guide.

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MTG Areas of Coverage and Observations Schedule

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Flexible Combined Imager (FCI)

FCI instrument in at test centre

FCI instrument in at test centre. Credit: ESA

The Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) on the MTG-I satellite continues the very successful operation of the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) on Meteosat Second Generation (MSG).

Requirements for the FCI were formulated by regional and global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) and Nowcasting communities. These requirements are reflected in the design which allows for Full Disc Scan (FDS), with a basic repeat cycle of 10 minutes, and a European Regional-Rapid-Scan (RRS) which covers one-quarter of the full disc with a repeat cycle of 2.5 minutes.

The FCI takes measurements in 16 channels, of which eight are placed in the solar spectral domain between 0.4 µm to 2.2 µm, delivering data with a 1 km spatial resolution. The additional eight channels are in the thermal spectral domain between 3.8 µm to 13.3 µm, delivering data with a 2 km spatial resolution. In the RSS mode two channels in the solar domain will be disseminated with advanced spatial resolution of 0.5 km. In the thermal domain two channels will have an advanced spatial resolution of 1 km. The scanning domain is the so-called LAC4 domain, with the wider Europe region enclosed.

Instrument information
Channel Centre Wavelength Spectral Width Spatial Sampling Distance (SSD)
VIS 0.4 0.444 µm 0.060 µm 1.0 km
VIS 0.5 0.510 µm 0.040 µm 1.0 km
VIS 0.6 0.640 µm 0.050 µm 1.0 km; 0.5 km*
VIS 0.8 0.865 µm 0.050 µm 1.0 km
VIS 0.9 0.914 µm 0.020 µm 1.0 km
NIR 1.3 1.380 µm 0.030 µm 1.0 km
NIR 1.6 1.610 µm 0.050 µm 1.0 km
NIR 2.2 2.250 µm 0.050 µm 1.0 km; 0.5 km*
IR 3.8 (TIR) 3.800 µm 0.400 µm 2.0 km; 1.0 km*
WV 6.3 6.300 µm 1.000 µm 2.0 km
WV 7.3 7.350 µm 0.500 µm 2.0 km
IR 8.7 (TIR) 8.700 µm 0.400 µm 2.0 km
IR 9.7 (O3 ) 9.660 µm 0.300 µm 2.0 km
IR 10.5 (TIR) 10.500 µm 0.700 µm 2.0 km; 1.0 km*
IR 12.3 (TIR) 12.300 µm 0.500 µm 2.0 km
IR 13.3 (CO2 ) 13.300 µm 0.600 µm 2.0 km

Note: The channels VIS 0.6, NIR 2.2, IR 3.8 and IR 10.5 are delivered in both FDSS and RSS sampling configurations, the latter is indicated by * in the table.

Graphic of Earth showing field of view

Field of view of the Lightning Imager instrument

Lightning Imager (LI)

The Lightning Imager (LI), on board the MTG-I satellites, will continuously measure at a wave-length of 777.4 nm with a very narrow bandwidth, with a spatial resolution 4.5 km at sub-satellite point, triggered by a variable threshold — optical pulses initiated by lightning emitting energy of larger than between 4 and 7 µJm-2sr-1.

The field of view (FOV) of the LI instrument is covered by four identical cameras on the instrument, each covering one out of four domains on the observable Earth disc.

Products derived from the instrument data will be arranged around following three categories:

  1. Events — what the instrument measures, a triggered pixel in the detector grid.
  2. Groups — neighbouring events in the same integration period (1 ms), representing a lightning stroke.
  3. Flashes — collection of groups in temporal and spatial vicinity (XX km, YY milliseconds), representing a lightning flash.

The LI will complement the two NOAA GLMs (Geostationary Lightning Mapper) on the GOES-R and the GOES-S satellites, contributing, in the long term, to near global coverage.

Infrared Sounder (IRS)

Graphic showing MTG Infrared Sounder dwell coverage

MTG Infrared Sounder dwell coverage

The IRS will deliver over the Full Disc in the Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) 800 spectral channels and in the Mid-Wave Infrared (MWIR) 920 channels with a basic repeat cycle of 60 minutes.

The IRS is based on an imaging Fourier-interferometer with a hyperspectral resolution of 0.625 cm-1 wave-number, taking measurements in two bands, the Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) and the Mid-Wave Infrared (MWIR), with a spatial resolution of 4 km.

Summary of technical specifications:

  • Spectral bands: MWIR: 1600 to 2250 cm-1 (4.44–6.25 µm) and LWIR: 680 to 1210 cm-1 (8.26–14.70 µm).
  • Full disc coverage in 60 min, Europe region (Local Area Coverage) 30 min.
  • Onground resolution of 4 km x 4 km.
  • Radiometric measurement ranges between 180 K and 313 K (equivalent black-body temperature.)
  • Spectral radiometric noise (excluding spectral calibration) at 280 K black body: between 170 and 900 mK depending on the considered wave-number inside the band of interest

Ultraviolet Sounder

Graphic showing instrument spectral bands and sampling domain

Instrument spectral bands and sampling domain

The Ultraviolet, Visible and Near-Infrared Sounding (UVN) instrument is a Copernicus Sentinel-4 instrument designed for geostationary chemistry applications. It will fly on board the MTG-S satellites

The UVN is a spectrometer taking measurements in the ultraviolet (UV: 305–400 nm), the visible (VIS: 400–500 nm) and the near infrared (NIR: 755–775 nm) with a spatial resolution of better than 10 km.

Its observations are restricted to Earth area coverage, from 30 to 65° N in latitude and 30° W to 45° E in longitude. The observation repeat cycle period will be shorter than or equal to one hour.

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MTG Long-term Operations Plan

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Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) will comprise of six new satellites, the first of which was launched in 2022. The MTG programme should guarantee access to space-acquired meteorological data until at least the early 2040s.

Planned deployment of the satellites can be found in the Satellite service and history table in the Meteosat Third Generation section of the EUMETSAT User Portal.

For more information on deployment of MTG services, data releases and more, see the MTG in operations user guide.

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MTG Data Formats and Volumes

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NetCDF-4 is the baseline format for the FCI, LI and IRS instrument dataset generation. NetCDF-4 offers a number of advantageous features, including:

  • Ability to cope with large dataset sizes — ~7 Gbytes for Full Disc archived dataset for MTG compared to the current ~220 Mbytes.
  • Datasets are self describing.
  • Groups allow potential for easier subsetting.

BUFR, GRIB and other formats will be used where there is already a product delivered in that particular format. See the Formats user guide for more details.

When available further information will be added to the Meteosat Third Generation resources section in the EUMETSAT User Portal.

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Global training resources on Satellite Meteorology

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Established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS), the Virtual Laboratory for Training and Education in Satellite Meteorology (VLab) is a global network of specialized training centres and meteorological satellite operators working together to improve the utilisation of data and products from meteorological and environmental satellites. The VLab web site provides links to a host of training material, highly relevant for User Preparations activities. The Comet programme at UCAR provides training material for general and for satellite meteorology. In particular Comet provides the MetEd Training and Resources site. This site contains numerous self-paced web-based lessons pertaining to meteorological satellites, check this link. Although primarily English, many lessons are also available in Spanish and French.”

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