Evolution of DLR's Multi-Mission Ground Station as a Reception Facility in the Middle of Europe (Sektion 2)

Abstract

The Earth Observation Center (EOC) is a cluster institute of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The EOC comprises the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) and the Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF), at work in Oberpfaffenhofen, Neustrelitz, Berlin-Adlershof and Bremen. With its national and international receiving stations, DFD offers direct access to data from earth observation missions, derives information products from the raw data, disseminates these products to users, and safeguards all data in the National Remote Sensing Data Library for long-term use. The EOC operates the National Ground Station Neustrelitz (NSG), which is used as main ground station for the payload data reception of high rate data stream (X-Band, Ka-Band). In the beginning of the 90th, after finishing the INTERKOSMOS program, the station development has started into a new era. First projects have been OKEAN, the solar mission CORONAS-I/F, and the joint project MOMS/PRIRODA. Nowadays, the ground station is involved operationally for remote sensing missions like TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, Landsat-8, Landsat-7, KOMPSAT, Sentinel-1A/B, OCEANSAT-2, AQUA, TERRA, and for several small explorer missions. A number of Indian and international projects have been successfully supported. On behalf of ESA, the EOC, especially NGS with specific front end processing systems, has developed and operates the Sentinel-5P Ground System inclusive the operations of ground station elements at Svalbard and Inuvik. The paper describes the evolution process over two decades with respect to the station site and infrastructure, and the main hardware and software design. It focuses on the automation system of the station, which is either today station specific. From the beginning, the development goal was full integration in a highly automated multi-mission system. Relevant working areas are reception planning, reception automation, and quality control. Starting from long-term experience in data reception a software system supporting operations planner and operators has been developed. This system realizes a fast and reliable adopting of changing operation scenarios, a stable station monitoring and control and an objective collection of reception quality data. Furthermore, the paper gives a detailed view on the main integration and production component: the Front-End Processing system (FEP). In this role, the FEP is capable to be easily integrated in local and external facilities and provides a rich bundle of functions beside an excellent expandability and maintainability having limited resources.