All goes well with the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) activities at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt!

Metop-B in orbit Credit: ESA/Eumetsat

Metop-B in orbit Credit: ESA/Eumetsat

Today, the mission operations team are focussed on completing the OCMs – orbit correction manoeuvres – that will gently nudge Metop-B into its final orbital position. There are thruster burn slots available at 20:46 CEST today and early tomorrow morning. In fact, Metop-B was delivered into an almost perfect orbit, so the manoeuvres need only be done within the plane of the orbit.

From this morning’s mission operations report (06:28 CEST):

  • Metop-B has now completed almost 21 orbits and is continuing to perform excellently
  • Orbit is nearly circular at about 801 km altitude, in a 98.7 degree polar orbit
  • Payload instrument antennas deployment and Payload Module initialisation complete
  • Power generation is stable at ca. 4.5 kW in sunlight; the solar array is tracking the Sun as expected
  • Total fuel at lift off 315.6 kg; consumed so far: 2.286 kg