(Sen) - The Metop-B weather satellite was successfully launched
into orbit last night from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in
Kazakhstan. Metop-B is the second Metop satellite, and its aim
is to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor by monitoring
the climate and atmosphere. Metop-A has been inhabiting a polar
orbit since 2006, but has now exceeded its design lifetime. The
Russian Soyuz-Fregat vehicle launched at 16:28 UTC on September
17, and the weather satellite took up its position in a polar
orbit 69 minutes later. The first few days will be used to test
the systems on board the satellite before commissioning of the
payload. Metop-B was developed for the polar satellite system by
the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological
Satellites (EUMETSAT), an international collaboration that
operates several meteorological satellites. Control of the
satellite will take place at ESA’s Operations Centre in Germany.
“Metop-B will become operational while Metop-A is still active
and performing well,”