This book gives an overview of an era in the history of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) and its successor the European Space. Agency (ESA), the Meteosat era, which came to an end on 30 November 1995. At the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) it covers more than 20 years of involvement, from the difficult times in the early 1970s to the successful operations in the 1980s and 1990s. It is a story filled with difficulties of an organisational, political, scientific and technical nature. It describes how these difficulties were overcome, finally leading to the production of Meteorological Products considered the best available, world wide.