Data flow
The Sentinel-2 Flight Operations Control Centre is located at ESA's ESOC establishment in Darmstadt, Germany, with critical housekeeping telemetry and commands primarily managed at S-band via the ground station in Kiruna, Sweden.
Once the Sentinel data are acquired on-board, they are sent to ground and received at the X-band core stations located in Matera, Italy, Maspalomas, Spain and Svalbard, Norway.
Data can also be transmitted via laser-link to the European Data Relay System, which relays data via geostationary satellites to ground where they are received at the user Ka-band stations. Use of EDRS is particularly useful when Sentinel-2 is not within range of the X-band ground station, allowing information to be even more readily available to end users.
Once the data are received on-ground, a network of Processing and Archiving Centres provide systematic data processing. All data products are archived and disseminated online to the users.
While the ground segment of each Sentinel mission includes specific components, all the related facilities are united to form the Copernicus Space Component Ground Segment.
In particular, access to the Copernicus Space Component (CSC) data is coordinated through the CSC Data Access System. Here, data flowing from the various ground segments and missions are streamlined in a way that is as transparent as possible to the users.
The Copernicus Space Component Ground Segment is complemented by the Sentinel Collaborative Ground Segment. This entails additional elements for specialised solutions in different technological areas such as data acquisition, complementary production and dissemination, innovative tools and applications, and complementary support to calibration and validation activities.
The Copernicus Space Component Ground Segment and the Data Access Coordinated System are coordinated by ESA, while the Sentinel Collaborative Ground Segment is funded and managed by third parties such as national space agencies.
