The Flight Operations teams at EUMETSAT’s Darmstadt headquarters are carrying out an intricate, nearly two-month-long process to reposition three of Europe’s crucial Meteosat meteorological satellites during February and March.

The reason? To ensure the best possible configuration of more than a billion euros worth of geostationary satellite technology for monitoring severe weather over Europe and Africa, and the climate, from space.

This video shows the different phases of relocation both from inertial, Earth-fixed and satellite point of view.

Meteosat-11 will be the first to be relocated eastwards, to occupy the slot at 0°. Meteosat-10 will also drift eastwards to occupy the slot at 9.5°E. The last to move, Meteosat-9, will drift westwards, to reach a currently empty slot (3.5°E).

As also shown in the video, a partial lunar eclipse will occur for Meteosat-9/10, on the 15 February.

You can read more about this on the EUMETSAT Science Blog:
https://scienceblog.eumetsat.int/2018/02/a-celestial-pas-de-trois/