[HN Gopher] Europe's first geostationary sounder satellite is la...
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Europe's first geostationary sounder satellite is launched
Author : diggan
Score : 154 points
Date : 2025-07-05 14:21 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eumetsat.int)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eumetsat.int)
| ArneVogel wrote:
| I think this is the first time I have seen the .int tld used.
| diggan wrote:
| It isn't super popular, no. I think the requirements are pretty
| strict if I remember correctly (edit:
| https://www.iana.org/domains/int/policy).
|
| I think esa.int is probably one of the more popular .int
| domains on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=esa.int
| r721 wrote:
| interpol.int also comes to mind.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| It would have been better if the requirements also included
| the domain name had to start with a letter between I and N
| (inclusive).
|
| But I guess this is what you get when these things get away
| from technologists.
| jfengel wrote:
| Ah, a Fortran joke. That's not just "technologists". That's
| old farts.
|
| (In Fortran 66, variables didn't have to be declared. They
| would be integer if they began with I, J, K, L, M, or N.
| Otherwise it would be floating point [REAL, in Fortran
| parlance]. To this day it's why for loops usually use "i".
| With the bonus joke that God is real unless declared
| integer.)
| spauldo wrote:
| I think that's still the case, even in the latest FORTRAN
| standard. It's usually considered good practice to turn
| it off with IMPLICIT NONE.
| mkl wrote:
| Maths is the reason for loops use i. Fortran defines
| variables starting with those letters to be integers
| because maths has used those letters for iteration,
| counting, indexing, etc. for centuries. It was natural
| for a _for_ mula _tran_ slating system to follow suit.
| lutoma wrote:
| Other notable .int domains:
|
| * World Health Organization - https://who.int
|
| * NATO - https://nato.int
|
| * Council of Europe - https://coe.int
|
| * Mercosur - https://mercosur.int
|
| * African Union - https://au.int
|
| * EFTA - https://efta.int
| dylan604 wrote:
| How long until an executive order is issued to block the
| .int TLD. Everything on that list goes against current US
| policies.
| complex_pi wrote:
| In meteorology, you also have ecmwf.int (the European Center
| for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts).
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" MTG-S1's Infrared Sounder will scan nearly 2,000 thermal
| infrared wavelengths every 30 minutes to build vertical profiles
| of temperature, humidity, and trace gases. These data will be
| crucial for detecting fast-developing convective weather by
| revealing sudden shifts in instability, moisture, or wind - even
| before clouds begin to form."_
|
| In other words, it is
|
| > _" The Infrared Sounder on MTG-S1 is the first hyperspectral
| sounding instrument in geostationary orbit."_
|
| https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Meteoro...
|
| Is there a more technical article describing this hyperspectral
| instrument somewhere? It sounds pretty novel.
|
| edit: Also, I'm now confused about the ESA's claim to be "the
| first", because
|
| > _" In 2016, the Chinese Meteorological Agency (CMA) launched
| the Geostationary Interferometric Infrared Sounder (GIIRS), to be
| the first hyperspectral sounder in geostationary orbit"_
|
| https://www.aos.wisc.edu/aosjournal/Volume38/Loveless_PhD.pd...
| (PhD thesis of David M. Loveless (2021))
| diggan wrote:
| > edit: Also, I'm now confused about the ESA's claim to be the
| "first", because
|
| I think you might have misread the title, "Europe's first
| [...]"
|
| > Is there a more technical article describing this
| hyperspectral instrument somewhere?
|
| https://space.oscar.wmo.int/instruments/view/irs has an short
| overview
|
| Then this document provides an introduction (+ details) about
| the MTG-IRS program in general:
| https://user.eumetsat.int/s3/eup-strapi-media/MTG_IRS_L2_ATB...
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" I think you might have misread the title,"_
|
| No; I'm quoting the esa.int article verbatim. The
| eumetsat.int article qualifies _"...over Europe "_, but the
| esa.int does not. I suspect esa.int is just mistaken.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Clearly, if it's not European, it doesn't count.
| riedel wrote:
| Here is a link that lists the sensors/data products roughly:
| https://webapps.itc.utwente.nl/sensor/getsat.aspx?Find=sat&N...
|
| The IRS seems 4km and sentinel 4 8km if I read it correctly.
| The cool thing is that it is stationary unlike other sentinel
| satellites and can actually be used for now casting. No clue
| how infrared sounding performs with cloud cover.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Imagine a world where America actually wanted to understand
| climate change.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Considering the emissions of the US and the outright
| rejection of climate action through the Paris accords, and
| the covering up of climate related research, it would seem
| fair to consider climate change as partly caused by outright
| American hostility. They say the most impacted will be people
| in developing nations, also, not in the US. Absolutely
| horrific actions.
| themisto wrote:
| Only tangentially related: I have nothing but respect for
| EUMETSAT and their public data store. For past work projects I've
| had to interface with a pretty broad sample of the world's space
| and/or meteorological agency's public data stores and APIs and
| EUMDAC (EUMETSAT's API client) was top tier. Well documented,
| modern, fast, and generally headache free.
|
| In fact, I have nothing but respect for any agency that makes
| free and public access to earth observation data a priority,
| regardless of how janky their API is.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Copernicus browser allows to browser images of the earth in
| quite high resolution (I think up to 20x20m) refreshed every 3
| days or so and it's absolutely cool to be able to use different
| views such as nir, swir...
| nullhole wrote:
| I've worked with similar data in the past. As you say, nothing
| but respect for agencies that make such useful data publicly
| available.
|
| Are there any other standout national agencies you've dealt
| with?
|
| And, have you seen any degradation recently with NOAA data? NGS
| has always impressed me, but I've been worried about their
| future lately.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| Shout-out to the NOAA GFS team, who publish the GFS analysis
| directly to AWS S3.
|
| https://registry.opendata.aws/noaa-gfs-bdp-pds/
| st3fan wrote:
| Canada should be next.
| pbmonster wrote:
| Do you have more context? Naively, one would assume the
| geostationary satellites the US already has in orbit can see
| Canada just fine.
| 8note wrote:
| access is however, gated behind the american government, and
| relying on american satelites is a national security risk to
| canada.
|
| for example, the US has stopped sharing weather data with
| canada.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Naive question: what's the benefit here to scan downward (from
| the satellite position) over upward, from the ground?
| complex_pi wrote:
| If the question is about satellite vs ground instrument: the
| geographic coverage from the satellite is much greater.
| Geostationary instruments over Europe cover the Atlantic Ocean,
| Europe, Africa, the Middle East.
|
| If that was not the question, can you provide more detail?
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Thanks, this is indeed the question. Thinking out loud: the
| coverage is probably somewhat conic therefore if you want to
| scan the ground or lower atmosphere an high altitude is
| optimal, while scanning the upper atmosphere could be done
| from the ground.
|
| Perhaps earth's spherical shape gives an advantage to the
| satellites in both cases ?
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| Maybe, though a GEO satellite (or really any satellite)
| will always be much much farther from even the upper
| atmosphere than the ground will be, so satellites have a
| pretty dominant coverage advantage.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| You can't drive your sensor bank everywhere on the surface of
| the earth to point up.
| abra0 wrote:
| > MTG-S1 is the first geostationary meteorological sounder
| satellite to fly over Europe
|
| I was confused for a minute on how it's both _geostationary_ and
| _over Europe_ -- you can't be geostationary if your orbit is not
| over the equator!
|
| Turns out[1] the MTG-S1 satellite is in fact geostationary and
| parked at exactly 0deg00'00"N 0deg00'00"E (off the coast of
| Ghana), 42164 km up from the center of Earth, it's just pointing
| at Europe at an angle.
|
| 1 - https://space.oscar.wmo.int/satellites/view/mtg_s1
| complex_pi wrote:
| NOAA/NASA (USA), EUMETSAT (European organization), JMA (Japan),
| KMA (Korea), and CMA (China) all have a geostationary satellite
| (one or more actually). So, northern hemisphere countries, but
| the coverage is global thanks to the fact that you need to be,
| as you say, above the equator.
| progbits wrote:
| I had doubts about the "parked at exactly 0deg00'00"N
| 0deg00'00"E", thinking it was over Null Island just because the
| data wasn't updated yet and it was showing uninitialized
| values.
|
| But you are right, [1] confirms "0deg longitude".
|
| [1] https://user.eumetsat.int/resources/user-guides/mtg-in-
| opera...
| thmsths wrote:
| I am surprised they would pick 0 for the latitude, it seems
| that most of Europe, whether it's the land or the people is
| east of that. Maybe some important weather systems develop over
| the Atlantic and they want to track that?
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(page generated 2025-07-05 23:00 UTC)