PAZ ground segment

PAZ mission, in the framework of the Spanish National Earth Observation Programme (PNOTS) is a space-based SAR system intended to provide radar imagery services for security and defence and also for civilian and scientific users, planned to be launched in the second half of 2013. The space segment is a heritage of TerraSAR-X with a new front-end design. The Spanish National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA) is responsible for the Ground Segment, which is developed by INTA itself together with a set of Spanish companies and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), under the technical direction of INTA. Moreover, INTA is responsible for the PAZ Calibration and Validation Center and for the Scientific Exploitation of PAZ Mission. The architecture of the PAZ Ground Segment, with special focus in its Nominal Centre is presented in this paper.