Clear skies for metop

Europe is launching the first of its Metop weather spacecraft, which will supply data for one of the US network's three orbits. Europe's Metop-1 is to be launched on July 17, 2006, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, atop an Arianaspace/Starsem Soyuz Fregat booster. The satellite was build by EADS Astrium for the European Space Agency, on behalf of Eumestat. The key element in the spacecraft's eight-instrument meteorological payload is an innovative infrared atmospheric sounding interferometer based on a Fourier transform spectrometer design. Developed by Alcatel with funding from CNES and Eumestat, the instrument will measure temperature within 1K and humidity within 5%, with a vertical resolution of 1km.