ESA's MetOp-SG-B1 weather satellite arrives in French Guiana ahead of launch
ESA · Airbus Defence and Space
ESA's MetOp-SG-B1 weather satellite reached French Guiana by ship on Oct. 16, ahead of a planned year-end Ariane 6 launch.
what happened
The MetOp Second Generation-B1 (MetOp-SG-B1) weather satellite, built by Airbus, arrived at Pariacabo harbour in French Guiana aboard the ship Canopee on Oct. 16, with its shipping container offloaded Oct. 17, per ESA's own announcement. ESA's MetOp-SG-B1 launch campaign manager, Karsten Strauch, said the agency was "delighted to welcome Canopee to Pariacabo harbour, marking an important milestone on the road to launch." The satellite carries five instruments, including a scatterometer, a radio occultation sounder, a microwave imager, an ice cloud imager and the Argos-4 data collection system, and is scheduled to launch on an Ariane 6 rocket from Europe's Spaceport by the end of 2026, per ESA.
why it matters
MetOp-SG satellites are the backbone of Europe's operational weather-satellite system, which commercial weather-data resellers and smallsat weather-constellation operators build around and complement. Each hardware milestone narrows the gap to a renewed government weather-satellite generation that other providers' forecasts and climate products are measured against.
for who
Weather-data resellers, smallsat weather-constellation operators
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- ESA, Airbus Defence and Space
- Category
- constellation
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 5 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-10-16
- Published
- 2026-10-20 12:29 UTC