The third MTG system satellite of the MTG-I2 bus: “Meteosat-12” (called MTG-I1 at launch) was launched in December 2022, followed by the sounding satellite MTG-S1 last year, in July 2025.
The MTG system is the most complex and innovative geostationary meteorological satellite system ever created. Its fleet consists of two imaging satellites and one sounding satellite, orbiting 36,000 km above the Earth.
Both MTG satellites are equipped with identical Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) instruments, providing complementary atmospheric scans. While “Meteosat-12” ensures full coverage of the sky over Europe, Africa, and surrounding regions every 10 minutes, “MTG-I2” will provide rapid scan images over Europe and North Africa every 2.5 minutes.
Once operational, “MTG-I2” will deliver high-resolution weather images at an unprecedented frequency, allowing meteorologists to detect hazardous conditions earlier and monitor their development almost in real time.
By combining frequent rapid scans with broader full-disk observations and improved spatial resolution, MTG satellites will significantly enhance the detection and forecasting of extreme weather events, including thunderstorms, fog, wildfires, and dust storms – thus ensuring more accurate forecasts and earlier warnings for citizens across Europe.
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Interestingly, the new satellite will be positioned at 9.5° east longitude (currently, Meteosat-12 in orbit is at 0°), so Lithuania will be closer to the satellite’s central observation zone with MTG-I2, making its geometry more favorable for Lithuania than Meteosat-12.
Thus, after all the calibration work of the new satellite (around the second half of next year), we will see Europe and especially Lithuania more frequently and more clearly than before.
The satellite launch, planned for late evening on August 27, can be watched by opening this link (the broadcast will start at 22:45 Lithuanian time).
