The performance of the AVHRR, HIRS, and AMSU-A instruments on board Metop-A

The Metop series of satellites constitutes the space segment for the EUMETSAT Polar System, the European contribution to the Initial Joint Polar System, being developed in co-operation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the USA, to provide meteorological data from the Polar Orbit. The first Metop satellite was launched on 19 October 2006 on a Soyuz launcher from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Following the in-orbit commissioning of the spacecraft, Metop became the first European polar orbiting operational meteorological satellite. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), the High-resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) instruments constitute the operational meteorological payload provided by NOAA that, in addition to the EUMETSAT provided Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS), is flown on both, the NOAA Polar Orbiting Satellites (POES) and the EUMETSAT Metop satellites. Following the launch of Metop-A, an extensive in-orbit verification of the instruments was conducted with the involvement of EUMETSAT and NOAA/NASA as well as European and US Industry. In this paper the performance of the AVHRR, HIRS and AMSU-A instruments attained after the in-orbit verification of the Metop-A satellite is presented.