Ground Segment

The Ground Segment is a distributed segment using NASA, CNES, and commercial resources. The way it works and its relationship to the other CALIPSO Mission segments are depicted below.

Calipso Ground Segment

The Ground System is composed of three main components:

• The Mission Operations Ground System (MOGS), located in the United States (NASA LaRC), is comprised of two major sub-systems: the Mission Operations Control Centre (MOCC) and the Payload Data Delivery System (PDDS).
  
  • MOCC, located at the NASA LaRC in Hampton, Virginia, is responsible for overall mission coordination and Payload operations. MOCC's roles and responsibilities include mission planning and scheduling, formation flying coordination, Payload command generation, Payload health and status monitoring, trend analysis, data management, and Payload sustaining engineering.
  • The PDDS developed and managed by Ball Aerospace. The PDDS infrastructure includes a primary and secondary X-Band Ground Station able to receive the payload telemetry several times a day, a Network Management Facility performing level zero processing, and data services transferring data files to NASA LaRC.

• The Satellite Operations Ground System (SOGS), located in France, is composed of four major sub-systems:
  
  • The Telemetry and Telecommand Earth Terminal (TTCET), S-Band Ground Station located in Aussaguel, responsible for sending satellite telecommands and receiving housekeeping telemetry, supports S-Band command and telemetry functions.
  • The Infrared Imager Technical Expertise Centre is dedicated to the IIR inflight monitoring. It is located in Toulouse and was developed by CapGemini under CNES prime contractorship.
  • The Satellite Operations Control Centre (SOCC), located in Toulouse, serves as the Satellite control centre.
  • The Data Control Network (DNC) provides communication between SOCC, the S-band ground station, and the external Interfaces of the SOGS, including MOCC in the US.

• The Science Segment, located in the United States (NASA LaRC):
  
  • The Atmospheric Sciences Data Centre in charge of archiving and distributing CALIPSO standard products to users.

Moreover, in France, the AERIS/ICARE Data Management and Processing Centre distributes the products of the A-Train missions as well as the multi-sensors products made from those data.