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page 90
Pages 91 and 92 are tables. The next text page is page 93.
Organisation's inability to influence decisively ESA's decisions. With Metop, the Organisation had a workable scenario and a satellite that could support routine operations. Now that EUMETSAT and ESA had agreed on a way forward, the debate . became internal to EUMETSAT and, in the immediate aftermath of the Granada meeting, work on a preparatory programme for the EPS began.
It would be dishonest not to acknowledge that the debates surrounding selection of instruments for Metop were fierce and sometimes acrimonious, a fact which Udo Gartner, current Director of the German Weather Service and a long-time delegate to EUMETSAT, acknowledges. It took the delegates nearly four years, but eventually they selected the satellites' instruments (see table 6, page 78), driven by considerations of cost, weight saving and operational need. It is much too soon to make any attempt to explore dispassionately in a history the dynamics of the choices or to evaluate the significance of those choices. But it seems that the sound and fury has died down. After difficult debates, says Gartner, the delegates would come together and gel again.
The Resolution on the full EPS was presented to the thirty-second Council meeting in December 1996. A consensus emerged during the meeting that the Resolution should be opened for voting although a number of countries could not yet vote in favour. At the thirty-ninth Council meeting in September 1998, the delegates voted unanimously to start the EPS programme, though three of the votes remained ad referendum. By June 1999 all Member States had completed their national approval procedures and in December a contract was placed with industry for the satellites and instruments.
With hindsight, the delays in the start of an operational polar orbiting system, which at the time were deeply frustrating, were probably a blessing. In the very early days the Secretariat was extremely small. And though it energetically climbed a steep learning curve, the small staff was inexperienced. This tiny group had first to develop its own organisational infrastructure, negotiate for a new headquarters building and support sub-groups that were helping the Council to make policy, technical, legal and financial decisions. The MOP had to be overseen as well as the development and construction of an operational ground segment for the Meteosat Transition Programme (MTP). An additional operational Meteosat satellite was being built. A launch had to be procured. MSG was being defined and the founding Convention amended. A full-blown commitment to a polar orbiting system at an earlier stage in EUMETSAT's organisational life might just have been too much. |