Ground Segment

The CFOSAT ground segment is composed of several major components located in different countries, as illustrated in the following map:

• the Control Centre and the S-band station network, located in China,
• the French Mission Centre, with its two X-band polar stations, located in France, Canada, and Sweden,
• the Chinese Mission Centre and its three X-band stations, located in China.

1. The Satellite Control Centre (located in Xi'an) and its Telemetry, Tracking, and Commanding (TT&C) S-band station network are in charge of operation, control and management of the CFOSAT satellite:
   
   • reception and processing of satellite telemetry data and monitoring of satellite operation status,
   • transmission of commands and uploading of command data in order to control and manage the satellite,
   • tracking, determination, and forecast of the satellite's orbit (including injection orbit).
2. The Satellite Mission Centre is composed of two independent Mission Centres: the French Mission Centre , located in Toulouse and Brest, and the Chinese Mission Centre located in Beijing. Both Mission Centres are in charge of:
   
   • reception of both instruments' (SWIM and SCAT) scientific telemetry,
   • processing of both instruments' (SWIM and SCAT) scientific telemetry, as well as combined SWIM, SCAT, and other instruments' telemetry,
   • generating, archiving, and dispatching the CFOSAT scientific products to the end users.

Both Mission Centres include expertise centres.

Chinese and French Mission centres have the following dedicated requirements:

• The Chinese Mission Centre retrieves scientific telemetry with dedicated X-band stations located from North to South of China: Mudanjiang, Beijing, and Sanya. This mission centre is in charge of SCAT instrument control, programming and calibration, as well as scientific telemetry download management.

• On the other hand, the French Mission Centre is in charge of SWIM instrument control, programming and calibration.
  The most distinctive requirement of the French Mission Centre is the Near Real Time (NRT) requirement: wind and wave products shall be made available at meteorological or oceanographic operational centres within 3 hours from acquisition time. This requirement is mainly achieved by downloading Science telemetry data on polar X-band stations located in Inuvik (Canada) and Kiruna (Sweden) and using a high speed network.
  The mission centre located in Toulouse is mainly focused on SWIM management and SWIM and SCAT NRT product processing and dispatching. The mission centre located in Brest is focused on specific and combined products.