August 1, 2014

Ground Segment

The mission’s ground segment was divided into 3 primary entities:

A Command Control segment called MIGS (Micro-satellite Ground Segment), which includes 4 components during the operational phase of the mission:

  • A multi-mission microsatellite CCC (Command Control Centre), comprising a nominal centre and a testing centre. This CCC controlled both the Demeter and Parasol operations.
  • Two 2 GHz SCC or TTCET (Telemetry and TeleCommand Earth Terminal) receiver stations, one in Aussaguel near Toulouse, France, and the other in Kiruna, Sweden.
  • One 8 GHz TETX (X band Telemetry Earth Terminal) receiver station located at the Toulouse Space Centre in France.
  • A DCN (Data Communication Network).

A 3-part level 1 science mission centre (CMS-N1):

  • The front CMS, which managed the preparation and transmission of payload telecommands to the command centre and the recovery of scientific telemetry stored in the 8 GHz station.
  • The production centre (CPP), to process, distribute and archive level 1 Parasol products.
  • The image quality system (SQI), which monitored instrument performance, managed calibration operations and calculates calibration coefficients.

The Icare research cluster, which created a common data management and processing centre (CGTD), took charge of processing level 2 and level 3 data as well as distributing level 2 and 3 Parasol products.