The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) has appointed Cristian Bank, CEO of the Danish company Rovsing, as Director of Programme Preparation and Development.

The two Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) mission data acquisition (MDA) ground stations developed under a EUMETSAT contract by a European consortium led by Telespazio passed their Preliminary Acceptance Review on 30 November, after a comprehensive validation test campaign.

At its 88th session, the EUMETSAT Council agreed to exploit the Meteosat second generation (MSG) and EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) satellite systems for another seven years and opened the votes enabling the 30 Member States to formalise associated financial commitments in the course of 2018.

EUMETSAT has confirmed the readiness of its teams and the new version of its ground segment to support the launch and commissioning of the Copernicus Sentinel-3B satellite in a two-satellite configuration with Sentinel-3A.