Briefs · Frontier Science
Time to wake up MetOp-SG-B1 weather satellite
Europe’s next weather satellite has had a long lie-in. Time to wake it up.
MetOp-SG-B1 — ESA calls it the ‘sleeping beauty’ — spent more than 12 years in development, then sailed from Bordeaux aboard the sail-assisted Canopée on 6 October, arriving in Kourou on 16 October. Its transport container kept it dry, bathed in nitrogen and at a steady 22°C. Now out of the box and in the cleanroom, the team is switching it on for final checks and fuelling ahead of a launch on Ariane 6 towards the end of the year.
Once in orbit it joins its sibling MetOp-SG-A1, launched in August 2025, measuring temperature, precipitation, clouds and winds — the first of three satellite pairs meant to keep Europe’s weather data flowing for more than 20 years.
Conclusion: a weather satellite is not a machine. It is an alarm clock the size of a van.
Summary in our own words. The original belongs to its publisher.