PARIS — Europe’s meteorological satellite organization, Eumetsat, will provide ocean-altimetry data from the Jason-3, Sentinel-3 and follow-on satellites in support of the European Commission’s Copernicus Earth observation program under a contract with the commission signed Nov. 7.

Under the contract, the commission will pay Darmstadt, Germany-based Eumetsat 229 million euros ($286 million) for Eumetsat’s exploitation of these satellites’ data for the Copernicus marine service starting in 2015.

The 30-nation Eumetsat has a major role in Copernicus alongside the commission, which owns the program; and the 20-nation European Space Agency, which is technical manager of the satellite segment under a 3.15-billion-euro contract signed Oct. 16.

Among its other roles, Eumetsat has agreed to fly Copernicus’ Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 payloads on Eumetsat geostationary and polar-orbiting meteorological satellite missions as hosted payloads looking at atmospheric composition and air quality.

Philippe Brunet, director of aerospace, maritime, security and defence industries at the commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, signed the contract with Eumetsat Director-General Alain Ratier.

Peter B. de Selding was the Paris bureau chief for SpaceNews.