9 ms·

Europe's first geostationary sounder satellite is launched

223 points by diggan 1y ago

ArneVogel 1y ago
I think this is the first time I have seen the .int tld used.
- diggan 1y ago
  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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=esa.int
  - r721 1y ago
    interpol.int also comes to mind.
  - readthenotes1 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      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 1y ago
        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 1y ago
        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 formula translating system to follow suit.
  - lutoma 1y ago
    Other notable .int domains: • World Health Organization - https://who.int https://who.int • NATO - https://nato.int https://nato.int • Council of Europe - https://coe.int https://coe.int • Mercosur - https://mercosur.int https://mercosur.int • African Union - https://au.int https://au.int • EFTA - https://efta.int https://efta.int
    - dylan604 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - lucgommans 1y ago
      List: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_with_.int_domain_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_with_.in... (Not real affiliation but still: I added a domain to that page at some point)
  - complex_pi 1y ago
    In meteorology, you also have ecmwf.int (the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts).
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Probably the most appropriate one. The ESA is not quite part of the EU and has non-EU member states (including _Canada_), so .eu would be inappropriate (the EU is itself a member of ESA, but most EU member states are also members in their own right.)
  - petre 1y ago
    The joke goes that thanx to Trump, Canada might actually join the EU.
perihelions 1y ago
> "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/Meteorological_missions/meteosat_third_generation/Infrared_Sounder 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.pdf https://www.aos.wisc.edu/aosjournal/Volume38/Loveless_PhD.pd... (PhD thesis of David M. Loveless (2021))
- diggan 1y ago
  > 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 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_ATBD_be6f60ded9.pdf https://user.eumetsat.int/s3/eup-strapi-media/MTG_IRS_L2_ATB...
  - perihelions 1y ago
    > "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 1y ago
themisto 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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...
  - MrDresden 1y ago
    I think the delay must be much longer than 3 days, since Iceland and Norway are still shown covered in their winter coats. Really interesting tool though. https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/ https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/
    - tacet 1y ago
      Hmm, there is no delay. Iirc the full cycle (sattelites return to exactly same spot in relation to earth) is about 10 days and most paces get crossed in 1-3 days. Are you looking at sentinel 1 or sentinel 2
- nullhole 1y ago
  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 1y ago
st3fan 1y ago
Canada should be next.
- pbmonster 1y ago
  Do you have more context? Naively, one would assume the geostationary satellites the US already has in orbit can see Canada just fine.
  - 8note 1y ago
    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.
    - chipsa 1y ago
      > for example, the US has stopped sharing weather data with canada. Citation needed. Most weather data from NWS is required by treaty to be disseminated through WMO compliant methods. The Metsat data is transmitted unencrypted from the GOES sats. I don’t believe they even have the capability to encrypt it. It’s only DoD weather data that’s not being widely disseminated, AFAIK.
      - tzs 1y ago
        The Trump administration in February temporarily ordered NOAA to stop communicating with foreign nationals, which included Canadians and included sharing data. I don't know if that is still in effect. Google "Did the US stop sharing weather data with Canada?" or ask your favorite LLM that provides references for its answers for more information.
        chipsa 1y ago
        Google says: no, the US did not stop sharing weather data. Communication isn’t automated weather data sharing. The data never stopped. Again, citation needed.
aziaziazi 1y ago
Naive question: what’s the benefit here to scan downward (from the satellite position) over upward, from the ground?
- complex_pi 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      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 1y ago
  You can’t drive your sensor bank everywhere on the surface of the earth to point up.
abra0 1y ago
> 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 0°00'00"N 0°00'00"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 https://space.oscar.wmo.int/satellites/view/mtg_s1
- complex_pi 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  I had doubts about the "parked at exactly 0°00'00"N 0°00'00"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 "0° longitude". [1] https://user.eumetsat.int/resources/user-guides/mtg-in-operations https://user.eumetsat.int/resources/user-guides/mtg-in-opera...
  - dmurray 1y ago
    That specifies its position to about 30 metres of precision. Presumably it's an intentional choice to put it at such a round number, rather than any scientific benefit over it being, say, 10km west or east.
    - slow_typist 1y ago
      Geostationary satellite are usually kept within in a cube of 100 km. That’s less than 1/10 degrees. For earth observation it shouldn’t matter much.
EverydayBalloon 1y ago
[dead]

223 points by diggan 1y ago

ArneVogel 1y ago

I think this is the first time I have seen the .int tld used.

diggan 1y ago
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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=esa.int
- r721 1y ago
  interpol.int also comes to mind.
- readthenotes1 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
      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 1y ago
      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 formula translating system to follow suit.
- lutoma 1y ago
  Other notable .int domains: • World Health Organization - https://who.int https://who.int • NATO - https://nato.int https://nato.int • Council of Europe - https://coe.int https://coe.int • Mercosur - https://mercosur.int https://mercosur.int • African Union - https://au.int https://au.int • EFTA - https://efta.int https://efta.int
  - dylan604 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - lucgommans 1y ago
    List: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_with_.int_domain_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_with_.in... (Not real affiliation but still: I added a domain to that page at some point)
- complex_pi 1y ago
  In meteorology, you also have ecmwf.int (the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts).
rsynnott 1y ago
Probably the most appropriate one. The ESA is not quite part of the EU and has non-EU member states (including _Canada_), so .eu would be inappropriate (the EU is itself a member of ESA, but most EU member states are also members in their own right.)
- petre 1y ago
  The joke goes that thanx to Trump, Canada might actually join the EU.

perihelions 1y ago

> "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/Meteorological_missions/meteosat_third_generation/Infrared_Sounder 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.pdf https://www.aos.wisc.edu/aosjournal/Volume38/Loveless_PhD.pd... (PhD thesis of David M. Loveless (2021))

diggan 1y ago
> 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 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_ATBD_be6f60ded9.pdf https://user.eumetsat.int/s3/eup-strapi-media/MTG_IRS_L2_ATB...
- perihelions 1y ago
  > "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 1y ago

themisto 1y ago

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 1y ago
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...
- MrDresden 1y ago
  I think the delay must be much longer than 3 days, since Iceland and Norway are still shown covered in their winter coats. Really interesting tool though. https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/ https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/
  - tacet 1y ago
    Hmm, there is no delay. Iirc the full cycle (sattelites return to exactly same spot in relation to earth) is about 10 days and most paces get crossed in 1-3 days. Are you looking at sentinel 1 or sentinel 2
nullhole 1y ago
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 1y ago

st3fan 1y ago

Canada should be next.

pbmonster 1y ago
Do you have more context? Naively, one would assume the geostationary satellites the US already has in orbit can see Canada just fine.
- 8note 1y ago
  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.
  - chipsa 1y ago
    > for example, the US has stopped sharing weather data with canada. Citation needed. Most weather data from NWS is required by treaty to be disseminated through WMO compliant methods. The Metsat data is transmitted unencrypted from the GOES sats. I don’t believe they even have the capability to encrypt it. It’s only DoD weather data that’s not being widely disseminated, AFAIK.
    - tzs 1y ago
      The Trump administration in February temporarily ordered NOAA to stop communicating with foreign nationals, which included Canadians and included sharing data. I don't know if that is still in effect. Google "Did the US stop sharing weather data with Canada?" or ask your favorite LLM that provides references for its answers for more information.
      - chipsa 1y ago
        Google says: no, the US did not stop sharing weather data. Communication isn’t automated weather data sharing. The data never stopped. Again, citation needed.

aziaziazi 1y ago

Naive question: what’s the benefit here to scan downward (from the satellite position) over upward, from the ground?

complex_pi 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
You can’t drive your sensor bank everywhere on the surface of the earth to point up.

abra0 1y ago

> 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 0°00'00"N 0°00'00"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 https://space.oscar.wmo.int/satellites/view/mtg_s1

complex_pi 1y ago
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 1y ago
I had doubts about the "parked at exactly 0°00'00"N 0°00'00"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 "0° longitude". [1] https://user.eumetsat.int/resources/user-guides/mtg-in-operations https://user.eumetsat.int/resources/user-guides/mtg-in-opera...
- dmurray 1y ago
  That specifies its position to about 30 metres of precision. Presumably it's an intentional choice to put it at such a round number, rather than any scientific benefit over it being, say, 10km west or east.
  - slow_typist 1y ago
    Geostationary satellite are usually kept within in a cube of 100 km. That’s less than 1/10 degrees. For earth observation it shouldn’t matter much.

EverydayBalloon 1y ago

[dead]