EUMETCast is a method of disseminating various (mainly satellite based) meteorological data operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (

EUMETSAT The European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) is an intergovernmental organisation created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 30 European Member States. EUMETSAT's primary ...

). The main purpose is the dissemination of EUMETSAT's own data, but various data from other providers are broadcast as well. EUMETCast is a contribution to GEONETCast and IGDDS ( WMO's Integrated Global Data Dissemination Service) and provides data for

GEOSS The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) was built by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) on the basis of a 10-Year Implementation Plan running from 2005 to 2015. GEOSS seeks to connect the producers of environmental data and decisi ...

and

GMES Copernicus is the European Union's Earth observation programme coordinated and managed for the European Commission by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), the EU Member States ...

Services

EUMETCast satellite includes data and derived products from the geostationary Meteosat satellites, Meteosat-7 (over the Indian Ocean), 8, 9 and 10 and the

Metop Metop (Meteorological Operational satellite) is a series of three polar-orbiting meteorological satellites developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites ...

-A, B & C and NOAA polar orbiting satellites, plus data from other meteorological programmes, such as Jason-2 (the

Ocean Surface Topography Mission OSTM/Jason-2, or Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite, was an international Earth observation satellite altimeter joint mission for sea surface height measurements between NASA and CNES. It was the third satellite in a series st ...

). Examples of data and products on EUMETCast satellite: * Space-based observations from the Meteosat, Metop, Jason-2 satellites. At their most frequent, these data are delivered to users within five minutes of processing. * Land application products covering Europe, Africa and South America. * Global and regional marine meteorological and ocean surface products. * Atmospheric chemistry products A range of third-party meteorological and environmental products are also available. The range includes: * Level 1 satellite data and derived products from a range of atmospheric, marine and land monitoring satellites (e.g. GOES-E & GOES-W, S-NPP, Himawari, FY2, Saral, Mega-Tropiques Aqua/Terra MODIS, Sentinel) * European Commission Copernicus and FP7 funded data and products * In-situ observational data * Numerical weather forecasts In 2016 EUMETSAT started a demonstration EUMETCast Terrestrial service, which sends multicast satellite data in Europe via the National Research and Education Network (NRENs) and the GÉANT infrastructure. Only organisations eligible for access to a NRENs can access the service, if the NREN supports multicasting. The terrestrial service will re-use components familiar to users of the EUMETCast satellite service and then, as for EUMETCast satellite, subscribes to the related multicast channels to receive the data.

Transmission technology

EUMETCast uses the

DVB-S Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite (DVB-S) is the original DVB standard for Satellite Television and dates from 1995, in its first release, while development lasted from 1993 to 1997. The first commercial applications was by Star TV in Asia ...

MPEG2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, w ...

stream for encapsulating IP frames (

IP over DVB IP over DVB implies that Internet Protocol datagrams are distributed using some digital television system, for example DVB-H, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C or their successors like DVB-S2. This may take the form of IP over MPEG, where the datagrams are ...

). At this IP layer, IP Multicast techniques are used for distributing the file based content. For this purpose, TelliCast (an IP multicast software from Newtec (formerly Tellitec)) is used. In 2014 EUMETCast was migrated to a

DVB-S2 Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite - Second Generation (DVB-S2) is a digital television broadcast standard that has been designed as a successor for the popular DVB-S system. It was developed in 2003 by the Digital Video Broadcasting Proje ...

transponder, which allows for higher bandwidth rates, and in 2017 a second DVB-S2 transponder was added for the European service providing Sentinel satellite data. Transmission is via

Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Eutelsat's satellit ...

's 10A satellite (in K_u band), Eutelsat's 5 WEST A satellite ( C band) and SES-6 (C band). Eutelsat 10A supplies coverage across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Eutelsat 5 supplies European African and western Asia coverage. SES-6 is located at 319.5º East, its tailored, high-powered hemispheric beam provides simultaneous coverage of both Europe and the Americas.EUMETCast System Description
/ref> The technology used makes it possible for end users to receive the data with regular off-the-shelf satellite TV equipment and a PC.

Licensing

The data policy distinguishes between essential and licensed data. Generally data may be used free of charge for scientific, educational or personal purposes, however for receiving licensed data registration is necessary and a hardware key (€ 40) has to be bought in order to decrypt the content. A License for the TelliCast client software must be obtained for € 60. From February 2019, for all country, these items are available from EUMETSAT at no charge .

References

External links

Video on how to set up a EUMETCast station (YouTube)
European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites Information technology organizations based in Europe Satellite meteorology