Ariane 6 Launches Europe's New Storm-Spotting Satellite

Arianespace launched EUMETSAT's MTG-I2 weather satellite from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana Aug. 27, on a flight the launch company says was the Ariane 6 rocket's first mission to geostationary transfer orbit.

The vehicle was an Ariane 62, the two-booster version of Ariane 6, flying as mission VA270. Arianespace's post-flight release puts liftoff at 5:11 p.m. local time and says the satellite was injected into a geostationary transfer orbit 2,778 kilometers above the Equator, then separated from the launcher 36 minutes after liftoff.

That is where the launch company's account ends. MTG-I2 is continuing on its own toward the operational geostationary orbit it is designed to work from, 36,000 kilometers up.

MTG-I2 is the second Meteosat Third Generation Imager, an instrument built to pick up fast-developing severe storms early. It will run a rapid-scan service over Europe every 2.5 minutes, alongside Meteosat-12, the first imager of the series, which an Ariane 5 launched in December 2022.

The Meteosat Third Generation satellites were developed by the European Space Agency against user requirements collected by EUMETSAT, and built by a consortium of European companies led by Thales Alenia Space with OHB System in Germany and Leonardo in Italy. EUMETSAT operates the satellites and distributes their data.

VA270 was the company's 362nd launch and its fourth of 2026, the ninth flight of an Ariane 6 and the sixth of the Ariane 62 configuration.