PARIS — Space hardware builder CGS of Italy on Nov. 10 said it had won a contract from Airbus Defence and Space to build the MicroWave Imager instruments for the Metop-SG satellites.
Under the contract, valued at 134 million euros ($168 million), Milan-based CGS, which is 100 percent owned by OHB AG of Bremen, Germany, will build three microwave instruments for the three “B” series Metop-SG satellites.
Airbus is building both the “A” and “B” satellites, with each series to include three spacecraft in polar low Earth orbit. The Metop-SG, or second-generation, satellites will succeed the current Metop spacecraft owned and operated by Europe’s Eumetsat meteorological organization of Darmstadt, Germany.
The Metop-SG satellites, part of a multibillion-euro investment by Eumetsat and the 20-nation European Space Agency, are expected to begin service in 2020.
CGS Managing Director Roberto Aceti said the microwave contract “places our company as one of the key players for the success” of Metop-SG.
