Article Posted on : - Jul 25, 2011

PARIS (BNS): European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded a 150 million Euro contract to Astrium to build two Sentinel-4 sensors for the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) weather satellites.

ESA plans to launch the geostationary meteorological satellites in 2019 and 2027. Each satellite will have a life span of eight years.

The satellites will monitor Earth’s atmosphere as part of Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme.

The Sentinel-4 sensors on board the satellites will provide data every hour on the chemical composition of the atmosphere including trace gases and ultraviolet radiation, according to ESA.

By providing data on sulphur dioxide and aerosols over Europe, the mission will also help to improve the monitoring of plumes from volcanic eruptions, the space agency said.

“Sentinel-4 will be the first spectrometer of this kind placed in geostationary orbit,” Volker Liebig, ESA's Director for Earth Observation Programmes, said while signing the contract with Evert Dudok, CEO of Astrium Satellites.

“This mission will not only provide accurate data for air quality forecasting services, but also provide information about greenhouse gases that can be used by decision-makers in formulating strategies aimed at reducing emissions,” he said.

The Sentinel-4 is one of a family of five missions ESA is developing for the EU’s GMES programme.

The Sentinel-4 mission comprises an Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared (UVN) spectrometer and data from thermal InfraRed Sounder (IRS), both embarked on the MTG-Sounder (MTG-S) satellite.

In addition, the Sentinel-4 mission will also make use of data from the imager that will be flown on the MTG-Imager satellites, ESA said.