Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) is a significantly enhanced follow-on system to the previous generation of Meteosat. MSG consists of a series of four geostationary meteorological satellites, along with ground-based infrastructure, that will operate consecutively untill 2018. The first MSG satellite to be launched was Meteosat-8, in 2002. The second satellite followed up in December 2005.

MSG has been designed in response to user requirements and serves the needs of Nowcasting applications and Numerical Weather Prediction in addition to provision of important data for climate monitoring and research. The MSG system has brought major improvements in these services through the 12 spectral bands (3 in the previous system) of its radiometer, the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI).

SEVIRI delivers daylight images of the weather patterns with a resolution of 3 km, plus atmospheric pseudo-sounding and thermal information. The High Resolution Visible (HRV) channel has a resolution of 1 km. The full disc view allows frequent sampling, every 15 minutes, enabling monitoring of rapidly evolving events. This aids the weather forecaster in the swift recognition and prediction of dangerous weather phenomena such as thunderstorms, heavy rain, fog and explosive development of small but intense depressions, which can lead to devastating windstorms.

EUMETSAT and the Satellite Application Facilities (SAFs) extract information from the processed SEVIRI data and turn it into products of particular use to meteorologists and climatologists, such as wind field diagrams, sea surface temperature, precipitation estimates and analyses of cloud coverage, height and temperature.

In addition to the SEVIRI, the MSG satellites carry the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument, which provides valuable data on reflected solar radiation and thermal radiation emitted by the Earth and atmosphere. Besides these two instruments, MSG satellites carry a comprehensive communications payload serving the needs of satellite operation, data communication and user data dissemination. The Search and Rescue transponder is also included in this package, and relays distress signals from ships, aircraft and others in peril.