With the highly sophisticated instrumentation of Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) and the European Polar System (EPS) many more applications and services become feasible than are provided by EUMETSAT's core activities in supporting weather forecasting. This led to the concept of a distributed Application Ground Segment, which includes the Central Facility in Darmstadt, Germany, and a network of facilities, known as Satellite Application Facilities (SAFs), as specialised development and processing centres. Utilising the specific expertises available in EUMETSAT's Member and Cooperating States, the SAF network complements the production of standard meteorological products derived from the satellite data at EUMETSAT's Central Facility in Darmstadt and also distributes software packages related to product generation.

Eight SAFs are currently in development or already in the Initial Operations Phase (IOP), covering eight “themes” addressing operational meteorology, climate and other disciplines. The SAFs on Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting, Climate Monitoring, Ocean and Sea Ice, Land Surface Analysis and Numerical Weather Prediction have started their first set of operational services (products as well as related user services). Near real-time SAF products are distributed via the EUMETCast, the satellite dissemination service of EUMETSAT, to a growing number of users in the domain of meteorology and beyond. Three additional SAFs (SAF on GRAS (Global positioning system Receiver for Atmospheric Sounding) Meteorology, SAF on Ozone Monitoring and the SAF on Hydrology and Operational Water Management) are still under development and preparing for the release of their first services in the next few years.

We will describe in this presentation the SAF concept and architecture and introduce briefly the SAF products and product availability as well as the future developments in the frame of the next SAF phase, the Continuous Development and Operations Phase (CDOP) during the years 2007-2012.