The TerraSAR-X Mission Operations Segment: From Command Generation to Offline Products

Abstract

On June 15th 2007 Germany’s first national remote sensing satellite, TerraSAR-X, was launched; on June 19th 2007 the first pictures were received and processed. TerraSAR-X is implemented in a public-private partnership between the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and EADS Astrium GmbH, with a significant financial contribution from the industrial partner. This radar satellite delivers high-quality radar images for purposes of scientific observation of the earth for a period of at least five years. At the same time it is designed to satisfy the steadily growing demand of the private sector for remote sensing data in the commercial market. This paper will describe first the primary commanding process as it is started with inputs to the Mission Planning System, MPS (by ordering of radar images), the further generation and uplink of the command files and the feedback given to MPS for the next planning cycle. In this context the specifically developed interface between the command generation process and the command system (SCOS2000) will be detailed. It will be described how this interface is not only used for MPS command generation but generally for all command sources, internally (e.g. Flight Dynamics) and externally (for the secondary payloads TOR and LCT (Tracking, Occultation and Ranging, and the Laser Communication Terminal)). The second part of the paper will give an overview of the generation of the offline products and their distribution, again internally to the project specific intranet site and externally to the TSX user community. Subsequently the methods and tools to analyze the products will be presented, in particular with respect to the high variety of the data products and also their content.