ENVISAT's Ground Segment will provide the means and resources to manage and control the mission, to receive and process the data produced by the instruments and to disseminate and archive the generated products. Furthermore, it will provide a single interface to the users to allow optimum utilization of the system resources in line with user needs.

The Ground Segment can be split into two major elements:

• the Flight Operation Segment (FOS) and
• the Payload Data Segment (PDS).

The FOS is composed of the Flight Operations Control Centre (FOCC), located at ESOC Darmstadt (Germany), and the associated command and control stations. It provides control of the satellite through all mission phases:

• satellite operation planning based upon the observation plans prepared at the PDCC
• mission planning interface with ARTEMIS

  

• command and control of the satellite, up-loading of operation schedules on a daily basis via the TT&C; station at Kiruna-Salmijarvi (north Sweden).

Furthermore the FOCC will support:

• satellite configuration and performance monitoring
• software maintenance for PPF and payload elements
• orbit prediction, restitution and maintenance.

The PDS comprises all those elements which are related to payload data acquisition, processing, archiving as well as those concerning the user interfaces and services.

The PDS will thus provide:

• all payload data acquisition for the global mission
• processing in Near Real Time and dissemination of ESA Fast Delivery Products
• data archiving, processing and delivery of ESA off-line products with support of Processing and Archiving Centres (PAC’s)
• interfaces with national and foreign stations acquiring regional data
• interfaces to the users from order handling to product delivery.