EnMAP Ground Segment Critical Design Review finished successfully

The ground segment of the satellite mission EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program) reached a major milestone when it successfully completed its Critical Design Review (CDR). On July 21, 2010 an independent review board, comprised of reviewers from DLR (German Aerospace Center), ESA (European Space Agency), and GFZ (German Research Centre for Geosciences) certified that the maturity of the EnMAP ground segment design is appropriate to support proceedings with production, integration, technical verification, and operational validation. This leads to full readiness for in-orbit operations of the first German spaceborne hyperspectral Earth observing mission EnMAP planned to be launched in 2014.

The Review

The project team of the EnMAP ground segment (GS) addressed a variety of technical topics during their presentations at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, including:

  • The planning of data acquisitions based on users’ inputs and considering violations of satellite resource constraints.
  • The analysis of the satellite health, calculation of orbit maintenance maneuvers, and determination of orbit products.
  • The frequent spectral, radiometric, and geometric calibrations based on Sun calibration measurements, and by utilization of on-board calibration equipment.
  • The huge amount of mission data to be handled by ground infrastructure.


As a result of this major assessment which bridges the design and production stages of a project, the design is validated, meets its requirements, and is backed up with solid analysis and documents based on the standards of ECSS (European Cooperation for Space Standardization). Having received the green light on the design during EnMAP GS-CDR the project team is moving out on full production of the ground segment. The CDR of the space segment will take place in May 2011.

The Mission

Detailed information about the mission in the left navigation under Satellite Data / Missions / EnMAP

The Ground Segment

The Earth Observation Center (EOC) and the Space Operations and Astronaut Training (RB) are responsible for establishing and operating the EnMAP GS. The satellite and instrument will be controlled and commanded by the German Space Operations Center (GSOC) with its multi-mission control center in Oberpfaffenhofen and its main S-band telemetry- and telecommand ground station in Weilheim. Data reception, data processing, and long-term data archiving, as well as providing a web-interface to the EnMAP user community, will be operated by the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) with its multi-mission infrastructures located in Oberpfaffenhofen and Neustrelitz, where also the main X-band payload data ground station is located. The development of the fully automatic processors capable of generating calibrated EnMAP image products at several processing levels including geometric and atmospheric corrections is carried out by the Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF) supporting the mission with its expertise and dedicated elements located in Oberpfaffenhofen and Berlin-Adlershof.

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