{"id":300312,"date":"2017-04-11T03:50:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T07:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=5bfd536afa11fd09ec743d01a9a10bae"},"modified":"2017-04-11T03:50:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T07:50:00","slug":"making-moves-on-metop-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=300312","title":{"rendered":"Making moves on MetOp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2017\/03\/making_moves_on_metop\/16882831-1-eng-GB\/Making_moves_on_MetOp_small.png\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;\">\nIt\u2019s known colloquially as a \u2018flying Dutchman\u2019 operation: lowering an engineer down into ESA\u2019s Large Space Simulator to make adjustments on the test item within; in this case the payload module of the newest in the MetOp series of weather satellites. The LSS is the largest vacuum chamber in Europe, based at ESA\u2019s Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/Our_Activities\/Observing_the_Earth\/The_Living_Planet_Programme\/Meteorological_missions\/MetOp\">MetOp <\/a>is a set of three polar-orbiting satellites whose temperature and humidity observations from a relatively close 800 km-altitude orbit have sharpened the accuracy of weather forecasting. Procured by ESA for Eumetsat, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, MetOp-A was launched in 2006 and MetOp-B in 2012, with MetOp-C due to follow next year.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;\">\nThe 2.1 tonne module carries a suite of meteorology and climatology instruments, variously procured by ESA or sourced from Eumetsat, France\u2019s CNES space agency and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Once testing is complete, MetOp-C\u2019s payload module will travel to the Airbus Defence and Space facility in Toulouse, France, to be integrated with its service module \u2013 the segment of the satellite providing attitude and orbit control, electrical power and communications, and hosting the main computer. The launch of MetOp-C by Soyuz from Europe\u2019s Spaceport in French Guiana is scheduled for October 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/videos\/2017\/03\/making_moves_on_metop\/16882831-1-eng-GB\/Making_moves_on_MetOp_small.png\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\"><\/p>\n<p>\nIt&rsquo;s known colloquially as a &lsquo;flying Dutchman&rsquo; operation: lowering an engineer down into ESA&rsquo;s Large Space Simulator to make adjustments on the test item within; in this case the payload module of the newest in the MetOp series of weather satellites. The LSS is the largest vacuum chamber in Europe, based at ESA&rsquo;s Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/Our_Activities\/Observing_the_Earth\/The_Living_Planet_Programme\/Meteorological_missions\/MetOp\">MetOp <\/a>is a set of three polar-orbiting satellites whose temperature and humidity observations from a relatively close 800 km-altitude orbit have sharpened the accuracy of weather forecasting. Procured by ESA for Eumetsat, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, MetOp-A was launched in 2006 and MetOp-B in 2012, with MetOp-C due to follow next year.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe 2.1 tonne module carries a suite of meteorology and climatology instruments, variously procured by ESA or sourced from Eumetsat, France&rsquo;s CNES space agency and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Once testing is complete, MetOp-C&rsquo;s payload module will travel to the Airbus Defence and Space facility in Toulouse, France, to be integrated with its service module &ndash; the segment of the satellite providing attitude and orbit control, electrical power and communications, and hosting the main computer. The launch of MetOp-C by Soyuz from Europe&rsquo;s Spaceport in French Guiana is scheduled for October 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300313,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300312\/revisions\/300313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}