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VA264 mission is a success!
On 12 August 2025, at 21:37 local time (00:37 UTC, 2:37 CEST on 13 August), Ariane 6 successfully launched the Metop-SGA1 satellite developed by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
For its second commercial flight, Ariane 6, the new European heavy-lift launcher operated by Arianespace, placed its passenger in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 800 km. Metop-SGA1 separated after a flight of 1 hour and 4 minutes.
A few minutes after this separation, EUMETSAT successfully received the first signals from the satellite.
Metop-SGA1 (Second Generation A1), Europe’s first second-generation polar-orbiting weather satellite, carries a total of six atmospheric imaging and sounding instruments that will provide observational data in the visible, infrared and microwave frequencies essential for weather forecasting, climate monitoring and a wide range of other services and applications.
Manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space under an ESA contract, this satellite will be operated throughout its service life by EUMETSAT, which will also manage the distribution of its data to users.
For this second commercial mission, the Ariane 6 launch vehicle was in Ariane 62 configuration, with two boosters and a short fairing.
On the same section
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VV27: behind the scenes at Europe’s spaceport as MicroCarb and CO3D get ready for lift-off
31/07/2025VV27: two conferences to find out more about satellites
30/07/2025Flight Vega-C : VV27 mission in a nutshell
24/07/2025Stargazing Event Ahead of the VV27 Mission Launch
23/07/2025VV27 : deux nouvelles étapes pour MicroCarb et CO3D
17/07/2025[VV27] CO3D and MicroCarb have arrived in French Guiana
03/07/2025The METOP-SG-A1 satellite has arrived at Europe’s Spaceport
