Temporary end of service for GESTA Optical Ground Support Equipment destined for the sounding satellites of Meteosat 3rd generation

Two years ago, Bertin Technologies provided its partner AMOS with two subsystems for integration into the GESTA OGSE, whose mission was to evaluate the geometric and spectral performances of Meteosat Third Generation’ sounding satellites (MTG-S). After successfully running for 62 days under vacuum, GESTA will now be crated for ten years.

The European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites EUMETSAT is currently developing the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) program. Its main objective is to provide the international meteorological community with high-precision data to improve weather surveillance, monitoring and forecasting, using an advanced satellite imaging system. Comprising 6 satellites, including 4 imaging and 2 sounding satellites, the MTG program will be in service until 2037.

As part of this program, Bertin Technologies has been selected by the Belgium company AMOS for the design and the supply of the source assembly and light source subsystems of the GESTA OGSE. Designed jointly by Bertin Technologies and AMOS, GESTA supported the characterization, calibration, and verification activities of the InfraRed Sounder (IRS) instrument, testing its geometric and spectral performances before integration on the MTG-S sounding satellite. GESTA is a highly compact, modular and automated equipment designed to operate under vacuum and in extreme operational conditions (liquid nitrogen circulation).

The expertise of Bertin Technologies in the design and manufacture of state-of-art test and calibration benches allows for the validation of the performances of the infrared sounder, which proved to be excellent.

Bertin Technologies has been working on EUMETSAT’s Meteosat meteorological programs for more than 20 years. A total of six OGSE has already been designed and supplied by Bertin for imaging and sounding instruments, detection electronic assemblies, interferometers, spectrometers, etc.

The launch of the first atmospheric sounding satellite of the Meteosat 3^rd generation fleet is scheduled for Q4 2024-Q2 2025.