SILEX ground segment control facilities and flight operations

The European Space Agency is going to conduct an inter orbit link experiment which will connect a low Earth orbiting satellite and a Geostationary satellite via optical terminals. This experiment has been called SILEX (Semiconductor Inter satellite Link Experiment). Two payloads have been built. One called PASTEL (PASsager de TELecommunication) has been embarked on the French Earth observation satellite SPOT4 which has been launched successfully in March 1998. The future European experimental data relay satellite ARTEMIS (Advanced Relay and TEchnology MISsion), which will route the data to ground, will carry the OPALE terminal (Optical Payload Experiment). The European Space Agency is responsible for the operation of both terminals. Due to the complexity and experimental character of this new optical technology, the development, preparation and validation of the ground segment control facilities required a long series of technical and operational qualification tests. This paper is presenting the operations concept and the early results of the PASTEL in orbit operations.