Europe deploys second weather satellite in Arctic
MOSCOW. Sept 18 (Interfax-AVN) - The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with a Fregat booster has brought to a nearly polar orbit the Metop-B European weather satellite, a space industry source told Interfax-AVN on Monday.
"The satellite reached a nearly polar orbit with the inclination of 98.7 degrees and the altitude of 800-850 kilometers at 9:36 p.m. Moscow time," he said.
"The satellite separated from the booster in an area outside of Russia's radio coverage, so contact was established later," the source said.
Metop-B is the second satellite EADS Astrium built for the European Space Agency and the EUMETSAT European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. Metop-A was launched from Baikonur in 2006. In all, there will be three satellites in the series.
The Metop project is a European contribution to the polar satellite network the United States is building to improve weather monitoring in circumpolar areas, which are not seen by the majority of satellites.
Metop satellites carry U.S. equipment, which ensures weather data compatibility, and new-generation European sensors, which upgrade the precision of measurements of temperatures, atmospheric humidity, ozone content, wind speed and direction. Satellites can also monitor the Earth surface and search for ships and aircraft in distress.
Each satellite has a useful life of five years. "Metop-A is still operational, so it will make a tandem with the other satellite and the reliability of data will grow," he said.
Metop-B weighs about four tons.
The Soyuz-2.1a rocket designed and manufactured by Samara CSKB-Progress can carry payloads of 7,480 kilograms to orbits of 200 kilometers. A modification of this rocket is used to launch satellites from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana.
Metop-B was supposed to be launched earlier, but Kazakhstan was late to give consent to the fall of rocket stages along the launch trajectory. Consent was given only in July 2012.