Mission Data Processing in the MTP Ground Segment

Y. Buhler, H. Faas, J. Göttlich
buhler@eumetsat.de
EUMETSAT

Abstract:
The new EUMETSAT ground segment for the Meteosat Transition
Programme (MTP) entered into operation in December 1995. The paper
presents the Mission Data Processing aspects of this ground segment.
This covers the realtime acquisition of the image data in three spectral
channels, its geometrical correction, dissemination, and quality control.
Furthermore, the corrected image data are used to extract a set of
meteorological products. All mission data are archived and can be
retrieved offline.

Firstly, the underlying concepts, like the realtime processing and the
data-driven implementation are adressed. The major mission data flows
are defined. Then, the data circulation through the ground segment and to
the end users is described, including the achieved timeliness figures. The
mission data processing is implemented on a distributed system of
workstations based on a client-server architecture with
application-specific redundancy schemes to comply with the high
availability requirements. This implementation is presented and the real
case of the a-posteriori addition of the Meteosat-6 anomaly correction in
the ground segment is an example of the robustness and the potential for
upgrade of this architecture.