Meteosat Third Generation: presentation of the video detection chains

Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) is the next challenging mission for accurate observation of the Earth dedicated to meteorology forecast. MTG encompasses two different missions: MTG-I (Imaging) and MTG-S (Sounding). MTG-I optical payload counts the FCI (Flexible Combined Imager), a multi-spectral imager in the continuity of Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) with improved performance and additional spectral bands. MTG-S transports the IRS instrument which is an Infrared Fourier Transform Spectrometer dedicated to the sounding of the atmosphere inspired by the previous IASI mission. Located in a geostationary orbit, the satellites are covering the full hemisphere for imaging (FCI) in less than 10 minutes in 16 different spectral bands from Visible to Very Long Wave IR at a resolution of 0.5-2 km and make a complete IR sounding of the atmosphere (IRS) in less than 1h at a spatial resolution of 4 km and a spectral resolution of 0.625 cm-1. In this article, we describe the detection chains of FCI and IRS instruments which give accurate sight to the remote sensing and afford the capability to reach the objectives of MTG-I and S missions. Some particularities of designs and key performance are presented. MTG on ground tests have provided interesting results which are therefore presented. These results have been obtained after 10 years of intensive research and development at Thales Alenia Space (Prime FCI) and OHB(Prime IRS), with the support and supervision of ESA and EUMETSAT. This research and development work has been performed under an ESA contract.