The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. ESA is an international organisation with 20 Member States. By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, it can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. ESA’s job is to draw up the European space programme and carry it through. ESA's programmes are designed to find out more about Earth, its immediate space environment, our Solar System and the Universe, as well as to develop satellite-based technologies, applications and services, and to promote European industries. ESA also works closely with space organisations outside Europe.

Interactive METEOSAT (IM) is a web-based interactive application, developed for ESA’s Earth Observation educational activities, for the teaching of satellite meteorology in secondary schools. The METEOSAT programme was initiated in the 1970s as an ESA programme. When METEOSAT satellites had demonstrated their operational capacities, EUMETSAT was created to take over and develop operational satellite meteorological programmes in Europe. Since then, EUMETSAT and ESA have cooperated closely in the development of the current EUMETSAT METEOSAT Second Generation (MSG) satellites and other missions. The successful cooperation between ESA and EUMETSAT will continue in the future with, for example, the METEOSAT Third Generation (MTG) satellites. Using Interactive METEOSAT, students can compare recent meteorological data taken at different wavelengths, showing different weather features – METEOSAT images are automatically accessed from the EUMETSAT website daily. Students can also create a free online account to upload their own weather data and to compare their results to the METEOSAT data and data input by other users. The educational aim is to increase students’ awareness of weather and meteorology and introduce them to the process of predicting tomorrow’s weather based on observations from the last days.