MSG-4

Arianespace’s Ariane 5 has successfully lifted-off two geostationary satellites, Star One C4 telecommunications, and MSG-4 meteorology satellites from the ELA-3 launch complex in French Guiana.

Designated Flight VA224, the launch is the 66th consecutive successful mission for Ariane 5.

Around 28 minutes after lift-off, Embratel Star One’s Star One C4 was deployed first in the flight sequence, followed by Eumetsat’s MSG-4 Meteosat satellite.

Built by Space Systems / Loral (SSL), the telecommunications satellite will offer direct-to-home services in Brazil, as well as expand Embratel Star One’s presence to other Latin American countries, and the mainland US.

"The excellent health of the Meteosat satellites in orbit means the launch of MSG-4 comes five years later than expected."

Arianespace has so far lofted ten satellites for the Brazilian operator over the past three decades.

MSG-4, which is produced by Thales Alenia Space, is the last satellite in the Meteosat second generation (MSG) series.

Designed to operate as a two-satellite system, the MSG system provides real time weather data every 15 minutes covering Europe and Africa as well as ‘rapid scan’ imagery over Europe every five minutes.

After ten days, the MSG-4 is planned to reach a geostationary orbit of around 36,000km above the equator. It will be renamed as Meteosat-11 prior to commissioning.

The satellite will later replace its predecessors, and will manage continuity of data until the first Meteosat third generation (MTG) satellites enter service in 2019 and 2021.

ESA Earth Observation programmes director Volker Liebig said: "We have learnt a lot from the long-term storage of satellites, which we can use for other operational systems such as the Sentinels.

"The excellent health of the Meteosat satellites in orbit means the launch of MSG-4 comes five years later than expected."

The MSG-1 was launched in 2002, and commenced operations in January 2004 when it was renamed as Meteosat-8.

Meteosat-9 (MSG-2) was launched in December 2005, while the third MSG (Meteosat-10) was placed into orbit in 2012 to replace the ageing Meteosat-8.

ESA also developed Eumetsat’s Meteorological Operational satellites (MetOp).

The agency plans to launch its Sentinel-4 and 5 payloads on the MTG and MetOp second generation satellites, respectively. These payloads are designed to monitor Earth atmosphere for Europe’s Copernicus programme.

Image: An artistic view of MSG-4 weather satellite in orbit. Photo: courtesy of Eumetsat.