Airborne validation of new-generation satellites for weather and climate
From the 1st to the 30th of June 2026 an airborne campaign – with the name MAGIC Avalon – will take place over France and Belgium for the validation of the new European weather satellite Metop-Second Generation.
The Royal Observatory of Belgium participates in this campaign in collaboration with the Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique (LOA) of the University of Lille. They are specifically focused on demonstrating the capabilities of the future climate mission Earth Climate Observatory (ECO).
ECO is currently at the end of its Phase 0 study as a candidate of the ESA Earth Explorer 12 future space mission, aimed at measuring the most essential of all climate variables: the Earth Energy Imbalance. The Phase 0 will be concluded by an EE12 User Consultation Meeting held in Tallinn, Estonia on 7-8 July 2026, where it will be decided whether ECO can continue to Phase A studies.
A key concept of the ECO space mission is the combination of cameras for high resolution observation, and a radiometer for high accuracy observation. This concept will be tested in the MAGIC Avalon campaign from the combination of the OSIRIS camera with a baffled CMP22 pyranometer. A test flight took place on the 9th of April in the South of France, the data of this test flight is currently analysed and shows promising results, that will be presented at the EE12 UCM.
Illustration of the MAGIC Avalon test flight with the ECO-like instruments setup aboard the SAFIRE ATR-42 aircraft on the 9th of April, 2026. Sample images of the OSIRIS wide field of view imager along the flight track are presented here with the FCI/MTG false colour composite image at 9:50 AM in the background. Values of the upwelling SW flux measured using the baffled CMP22 are also plotted as colour dots. Credit: ©LOA.
Links:
MAGIC Avalon airborne campaign: https://magic.aeris-data.fr/magic-avalon/
ECO start of Phase 0: https://www.astro.oma.be/en/the-earth-climate-observatory-new-space-mission-concept-for-monitoring-the-earth-energy-imbalance/
ECO concept paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/1522/1/012019
EE12 User Consultation Meeting: https://atpi.eventsair.com/ee12ucm