The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) system is being established through cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and EUMETSAT, the European consortium for operating meteorological satellites. As such it represents a broadening of the global- and regional weather forecasting and atmospheric-monitoring capabilities of its forerunner Meteosat Second Generation (MSG).

GMV is currently contributing to the MTG mission with the design, development and validation of the prototype processing for MTG imaging satellites, and the integration of the MTG sounding satellites prototype, to enable processing within a common framework.

The new MTG series will include six satellites installed on two different platforms, MTG-I and MTG-S. The first prototype is due to be launched in late 2017 and the second in mid 2019.

Thales Alenia Space France and EUMETSAT have once more turned to GMV’s expertise in operational processing awarding it the development of the MTG Instrument Navigation and Registration (INR) operational processor for the sounding satellites (MTG-S) under the MTG mission.

The purpose of GMV’s activities is to provide the operational processors for the Lightning Imager (LI) instrument. LI is an optical payload with onboard data processing for detection of lightning optical pulses. LI will detect and locate lightning over almost the whole Earth disk (geostationary orbit) operating in any illumination condition (day and night).