On 19th October 2006 at 18:28 MEZ the first of three MetOp (Meteorological Operational) satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European wheather organisation EUMETSAT were successfully launched from the Russian Baikonur station. At an altitude of 817 kilometers the MetOp-A will observe the weather within the next five years. For 7 out of the 8 optical and radar instruments the Jena-Optronik GmbH developed the software to process the data to primary data for the weather forecast.
The data gained by the instruments on MetOp-A are going to increase the quality of forecast noticeable. This will lead to an improvement of the prediction accuracy. In the practice steady and reliable weather information will be given for six instead of three days.
This way the Jenoptik subsidiary strengthens the role as an international provider of software and data processing in space and on ground. The company's EPS software processes the data measured by the MetOp instruments and allows high-quality and up-to-date data processing.
