Operations and data flow
The Biomass satellite flies in a polar, Sun-synchronous, dawn dusk orbit at an altitude of 666 km. It flies in a drifting orbit that enables the acquisition of images in an interferometric configuration with a 3-day repeat cycle. The satellite stays in this configuration to take three images of one area, after which it observes a new area. In total, it will take 228 days to cover the globe.
ESA’s European Space Operations Centre, ESOC, in Germany operates the Biomass satellite via the ground station in Kiruna, Sweden. The scientific data are also downlinked via X-band to the Kiruna ground station.
Once the data have been received in Kiruna they are sent to ESA’s centre of Earth observation, ESRIN, in Frascati, Italy, for processing and distribution to users.
