At a meeting of participants on 12 December 1997, ESA Member States took a major step forward concerning the METOP Programme by declaring it started and, subject to an adequate commitment by EUMETSAT in January confirmed their intention to proceed with industrial activities. The relevant budgets were approved, but blocked pending the EUMETSAT decision.

Subsequently, on 28 January 1998, the EUMETSAT Council made very

positive decisions, in particular with respect to the financial

commitments towards the METOP-1 project.

Resulting from this, two days later on Friday 30 January, the ESA Earth

Observation Programme Board gave its final go-ahead on the 1997 and 1998

budgets, thereby releasing the industrial work.

Consequently, ESA and EUMETSAT have now released an Authorisation To

Proceed, to the European industry for an initial amount of 115 Million

ECU's (90 from ESA and 25 from EUMETSAT) allowing all planned activities

to start on the METOP spacecraft.

The foreseen tasks include at present procurement of long lead equipment

items and start of work by all contractors. These activities will run

until end of September 1998, by which time the release of the full EPS

Programme is anticipated by the EUMETSAT Council.

The instruments on METOP will produce high-resolution images, vertical

temperature and humidity profiles, and temperatures of the land and

ocean surface on a global basis. Also on board the satellites will be

instruments for monitoring ozone and wind flow over the oceans. This

instrument payload will be of significant value to meteorologists and

other scientists, particularly those studying the global climate. In

addition to benefits to weather forecasting and climate studies from the

EPS system, there will be a contribution to high quality employment

opportunities in the European space industry.

The first launch is planned for 2003 as part of an international joint

system in cooperation with the USA.

METOP is a series of three meteorological operational polar orbiting

satellites, the first of which, METOP-1 is the prototype.

EPS stands for EUMETSAT Polar System, which comprises the space

segment, launches and operations during 14 years related to the METOP

satellites. It is planned to be implemented in cooperation with ESA,

CNES (the french national space center) and NOAA (the US National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).