e2v has signed a multi-million Euro contract with Thales Alenia Space for the design, development and manufacture of a space qualified CMOS imaging sensor for use in the Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) instrument of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG), an ESA and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) programme.

Following on from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG), the MTG network is being created to ensure continuity of high resolution meteorological data to 2037 and beyond.

This next series of 6 geostationary weather satellites includes 4 imaging satellites (MTG-I) and 2 sounding satellites (MTG-S) in geostationary orbits and will provide significant improvements over the capabilities of the current Meteosat generation.

e2v will manage the whole of the supply chain for the sensors, from the in-house design, to the qualification and delivery of the sub-assembly, including the CMOS imaging sensor itself and the customised package including filters.

This contract will build on e2v's extensive CMOS design expertise, project delivery capability, and ability to manage industrial supply chains.

The FCI instrument onboard each of the MTG satellites will provide images of our weather systems and environmental changes with better spatial, temporal and radiometric resolution than currently available.

The first MTG-I satellite is expected to be launched in 2017, with the first MTG-S following in early 2019. Thales Alenia Space is the prime contractor responsible for the MTG-I imaging satellites, including the primary FCI instrument.

Jon Kemp, marketing manager for high performance imaging solutions at e2v said "e2v has led the development and supply of high performance imaging sensors for space applications for many years and it is exciting to see our experience in CMOS technology enabling missions such as MTG.

We are very pleased to be entrusted with this important programme and look forward to the successful delivery of the Visible Detector Assemblies for the MTG-I satellites".