The GMES-Sentinels Flight Operations Segment

The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme main objective is to support Europe’s goals regarding sustainable development and global governance of the environment by providing timely and quality data, information, services and knowledge. To achieve this objective, the GMES programme features a Space Segment component comprising five Sentinels mission families. Scheduled for launch in 2011 and 2012, Sentinels 1, 2 and 3 represent the first step in the deployment of the GMES Space Segment. They are regarded as operational missions and as such require a high degree of reliability and availability also at the level of the ground segment while minimising the operational effort associated to the routine mission phase. This paper will describe the assumptions and constraints driving the definition of the GMES-Sentinels Flight Operations Segment (FOS). The resulting Operational Concept applied across the 3 missions will be summarised highlighting the innovative aspects, in particular the automated payload mission planning based on Orbit Position scheduled telecommands. Finally, a summary of the overall ground segment will be provided and the Sentinels FOS specific facilities, based on extensive use of ESOC ground software infrastructure, presented.