The new European-made Mtg-I1 Meteosat satellite will take off today at 21:30 Italian time from the Kourou base, in French Guiana, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. It is a system for super-fast weather forecasts, which will allow anticipate the arrival of extreme phenomena such as floods and this will allow for prompt alerting of areas at risk and citizens. 

The third generation satellite is developed by the European Space Agency (ESA, European Space Agency) in collaboration with the European Organization for the use of weather satellites (Eumetsat, European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites). Mtg-I1 will reach final orbit nearly 36,000 kilometers above Earth, where it will remain for at least 15 years. 

It will be the first of a constellation that will be made up of six satellites. The instruments these systems are equipped with allow for a much higher resolution (compared to the second generation) in the images, taken every 10 minutes, and also a completely new ability: that of continuously monitoring over 80% of the Earth in search of lightning in the clouds and from the clouds to the ground.