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Leading the ground-breaking ceremony were the EUMETSAT Director-General, Dr. Lars Prahm, and the Lord Mayor of Darmstadt, Mr. Walter Hoffmann.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, Dr. Lars Prahm said the NIB will add “a further dimension to our organisation not only in terms of infrastructure but also in terms of EUMETSAT’s future activities. A dedicated infrastructure building in effect means that we will be able to accommodate the technical and operational installations necessary to operate and to control EUMETSAT’s current and future satellite systems for weather, climate and environmental monitoring.”

EUMETSAT’s New Infrastructure Building - Short description:

The primary use of the new infrastructure building is the accommodation of technical-operational installations to control EUMETSAT's satellite systems for weather, climate and environment monitoring.

The ground floor and underground floor will host extensive mechanical installations required for an uninterruptable operation of such a high tech facility.

The roof is designed for the installation of antenna systems for the reception of satellite data.

Already at the beginning of the planning process, great attention was given to environmental aspects such as energy efficiency and the consideration and implementation of ecological and economic standards. The new German Energy Saving Regulation as well as the European Code of Conduct on Data Centres Energy Efficiency were considered an essential part of the planning process.
The building shell is covered with a steel skeleton construction.

The location of the new infrastructure building is south of the EUMETSAT headquarters facility and the two buildings will be linked by a tunnel.
The land has been provided to EUMETSAT under an agreement between Germany and the State of Hessen.

Floor space                    3,500 m2

Building cost                  €9.5 million

Scheduled building time  14-15 months (completion date end of 2011)

Planning team                Architecture: Pielok-Marquardt-Architekten, Offenbach
                                    Mechanical services: dc-ce, Frankfurt
                                    Electrical services: Schnabel AG, Frankfurt
                                    Structural services: ISG Darmstadt
   
General contractor         Leonhard Weiss GmbH & Co. KG, Satteldorf

About EUMETSAT

The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites is an intergovernmental organisation based in Darmstadt, Germany, currently with 25 European Member States (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom) and six Cooperating States (Bulgaria, Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Romania, and Serbia).

EUMETSAT operates the geostationary satellites Meteosat-8 and -9 over Europe and Africa, and Meteosat-6 and -7 over the Indian Ocean.

Metop-A, the first European polar-orbiting meteorological satellite, was launched in October 2006 and has been delivering operational data since 15 May 2007.

The Jason-2 ocean altimetry satellite, launched on 20 June 2008, added ocean surface topography to the missions EUMETSAT conducts.

The data and products from EUMETSAT’s satellites make a significant contribution to weather forecasting and to the monitoring of the global climate.

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