The geostationary satellite was transported to the Centre Spatial Guyanais at Kourou in French Guiana, on an Antonov cargo plane from Nice to Cayenne, after it had left the Thales Alenia Space premises in Cannes. It has now been placed in the clean room to start pre-launch checking and testing of all the satellite's units.

It will be launched on an Ariane-5 ECA Launch Vehicle and injected towards a geostationary transfer orbit. Following the Launch and Early Operations Phase, the Commissioning Phase will start, testing the on-board and on-ground systems. After that, the routine operations service will begin and MSG-3 will be renamed Meteosat-10.

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