00:00Top, alimaje del ESR y decolaje.
00:03En la Guyena francesa, apenas unos minutos antes de que se lance el MTG-2 en el Ariane 6,
00:08Euronews se reúne con James Champion, project manager de la misión MTG en la ESA,
00:14para que nos explique las claves tecnológicas, el impacto social y el astronómico retorno económico
00:19que este avance supone para los ciudadanos.
00:30En el tiempo que necesitamos para cumplir las necesidades necesarias para completar la misión que tenemos ahora.
00:36Así que, tuvimos que desafiararnos, tuvimos una serie de pre-development actividades
00:43que ayudaron a generar la tecnología a un nivel determinado,
00:46no tan de forma de ser un nivel, pero no tan de forma de forma,
00:49pero mostramos que tuvimos confianza en la dirección de viaje que íbamos en estos desarrollos.
00:54Así que los desarrollos para los detectores, como los detectores en tu cámara, en tu móvil o tu móvil o
00:59tu móvil,
00:59estas cosas.
01:00También tuvimos que desarrollar un especial frío, un cryo-cooler,
01:05para ayudar a coolar los detectores en el modo de tomar las imágenes que hemos estado viendo
01:10desde el pasado, MTG-I1, MTG-S1 satélites, y ahora lo que vamos a ver desde MTG-I2 también.
01:17Pero estas tecnologías no existen en el momento, tuvimos una roadmap,
01:20pero sabíamos cómo hacerla, cómo desarrollarlas,
01:22y fue una larga y arduosa para llegar a ese punto.
01:27Pero creímos en nosotros, creímos en lo que sabíamos que podíamos hacer,
01:32la colaboración con todos los partenarios europeos también.
01:35We've had over 70-plus European companies involved in this
01:40throughout the whole of the MTG development activities,
01:44over 200 contracts.
01:46You wouldn't believe how many ups and downs we've had,
01:49but with every down, there's always an up,
01:51because we got there, and the proof is in the pudding now,
01:53we're ready to launch.
01:54And so these technological challenges that we all face,
01:59we face together.
02:01So in the European Space Agency,
02:03we have experts for all multitude of domains,
02:07all kinds of things,
02:09ranging from materials to electronics
02:11to electromagnetic compatibility.
02:13And all of these people come together,
02:15and it's up to us, the project team,
02:17it's our responsibility for pulling them all together
02:20and making sure that the end product,
02:22from the tiniest little component
02:24that is then used to build up the instruments
02:27and the satellite,
02:28all function together,
02:29together with the Talis Alenia Space,
02:32OHB, Leonardo,
02:33the industrial consortium that we have today.
02:37And it's been an amazing journey.
02:39There have been over 2,000 people across Europe
02:42at any one time working on MTG.
02:44It's a huge amount,
02:45a huge amount of people.
02:47So I need to say thank you to everyone
02:49that's been involved in helping make this possible today.
02:52You were mentioning before
02:54that this family of satellites
02:55will be able to detect turbulences,
02:58which is going to be game-changing
02:59for the aeronautics,
03:01for the plane industry.
03:03Explain us a little bit more
03:05about that.
03:06Okay, so this is an opportunity
03:08that we see.
03:09So MeteorSat third generation,
03:12it's actually flying in a family of three,
03:14two imagers and one sounder.
03:16We launched one imager,
03:17the first imager,
03:19on the 13th of December 2022.
03:21The first sounder was launched last year
03:23on the 1st of July 2025.
03:25And now here we've got MTGI-2,
03:28the second imager,
03:29that's going to complete the family.
03:30They're all going to be operating
03:32in slightly different ways.
03:33The first imager is doing the full disk scan,
03:35scanning from the South Pole to the North Pole,
03:38doing the whole disk in 10 minutes repeat cycle.
03:41Excellent.
03:42This imager 2,
03:43it's an identical satellite to that one,
03:46but will be operated in a different regime.
03:48It will be operated in the rapid scan service
03:50that will be just focused purely over Europe
03:54every two and a half minutes.
03:55This is extremely fast,
03:57extremely fast and extremely high resolution.
04:00We're talking about half a kilometre,
04:01but from 36,000 kilometres away.
04:04If you see my patch here,
04:05this is a 10 centimetre patch.
04:07It's being able to detect that separately from another one,
04:11from over seven kilometres away.
04:13This is incredibly, incredibly impressive.
04:16But you asked about the clear air turbulence.
04:18This is where the geostationary sounder comes in.
04:21This is a remarkable instrument.
04:23This again scans the whole of the Earth disk
04:26from the South Pole to the North Pole.
04:28It can do that in an hour.
04:31We've chunked up the planet into four quarters,
04:34so we have a repeat cycle over Europe every 15 minutes.
04:38So every half an hour,
04:39we get a completely new scan of Europe.
04:42But it's operated slightly differently.
04:44It's step and stare,
04:45and it's actually getting altitude data as well.
04:47It's getting altitude data of the water vapour and the winds.
04:51And when we map that in a time-wise manner,
04:55we can see how each of the little cells
04:58that it's looking at has changed from the last time.
05:01So we can see on a half-hourly basis
05:03how winds have changed over Europe
05:07within that time frame.
05:11And it can detect clear air turbulence.
05:14The infrared sounder has over 1,700 channels.
05:18The imager we're flying now has 16.
05:22So the sounder is a hyperspectral sounder.
05:25It gets us vertical altitude data of wind and temperatures.
05:30And these, by looking at how the moisture travels
05:34at the different heights,
05:35and it's this that it can see.
05:37And it's this that we hope some bright spark
05:40somewhere over Europe is going to be able
05:41to get hold of this data
05:43and then turn it into a real-time clear air turbulence monitoring
05:48that eventually could be used by pilots and the airline industry.
05:53So the European Space Agency,
05:55we're providing technology that enables
05:57and promotes applications for the benefit of many, many people.
06:02And this is just one example that we can think of now.
06:05There's going to be a huge amount of other applications
06:07that are coming out of the services
06:09that will be provided by the Mitisat third-generation first family.
06:14Because this could prevent accidents.
06:17Not only it's for people who are scared of flying off turbulences,
06:21it can save lives.
06:22There are opportunities there, of course.
06:24Absolutely.
06:25If people have access to nearby, real-time clear air turbulence events,
06:33then yes.
06:34Of course, I mean, who can say?
06:35I mean, the more data and knowledge that pilots have
06:38can only be for the benefit of everybody.
06:40Thank you.
06:41Not just the pilot.
06:42The possibilities are endless.
06:43We have proven this technology and it works.
06:47And I'm very excited over the coming years
06:49to see what other applications are going to come out of this.
06:53It's more advanced than the American technology at the moment.
06:57Currently, the Americans are in the process
06:59of developing the sound of technology from geostationary orbit.
07:02And so I must say we are very proud in Europe to be there
07:06and have one in orbit for over a year
07:08that is working extremely, extremely well.
07:11But we're looking forward to the Americans catching up.
07:14Competition's good.
07:15It will push us.
07:16And we're looking very much forward to the fourth generation
07:19of the Métiersat family that we will then have to develop as well,
07:25bearing in mind that we've got a family two
07:28of the Métiersat third generations.
07:30They're put on a shelf.
07:31We're going to be storing them for a few years
07:33and then launching them in the early 2030s
07:36to replace the family that we have here at the moment.
07:39So we're well prepared for that.
07:40So the operational service will last well into the 2040s,
07:43but already we're starting to think about
07:45what are we going to do after that?
07:47So we've started with UmitSat, our cooperative partner,
07:51who actually disseminates all the data to the users.
07:54And so it will be someone that receives their data
07:58that will do this fancy clear air turbulence application.
08:02But we're already starting to work with them on what kind of requirements,
08:06what kind of needs will there be for the technology
08:09that we will then develop together with our industrial partners.
08:13There's lots of interesting things.
08:15I mentioned to you before about this 10 centimetre patch
08:19being able to be seen from over 7 kilometres away.
08:23It's incredible.
08:24But we have to be stable to do that.
08:27But at the same time, we need the detector
08:30that is detecting and seeing this to be cold.
08:35So in order to be able to see that.
08:37But to make it cold, we have a fridge, a cryocooler.
08:39But what does your fridge do?
08:41What does my fridge do?
08:42Well, it shakes.
08:42So we have to stop the shaking of the fridge
08:46in order to make sure that the detectors are all stable.
08:49The same with the mirrors.
08:51The same with the scan mechanisms over there.
08:53So we've had to develop very elaborate materials
08:56and complex operational schemes in order to overcome all of this.
09:01These challenges have been big, but we've overcome them
09:05by working together with lots of partners, as I said, over Europe.
09:10So the 70-plus companies coming together.
09:12We've been talking about what happened over the last 16 years.
09:15Yes, we've had two launches in that time frame.
09:18Two very exciting launches with the pro-to-flight models
09:21to demonstrate the capabilities.
09:22And now we're very much looking forward to this MTGI-2 satellite
09:26joining its brother and sister up there and completing the family.
09:31So yes, our conversations, they're things like,
09:37do you remember when XYZ happened and the like?
09:40And there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears has gone into this,
09:44not just from me, but from the team as well.
09:52So yes, I've got first and any people coming together.
09:53who were coming together,
09:53who's a member of the team as well?
09:53And there's a lot of people coming together.
09:53Gracias.
