Basic principle

The SPOT operations control centres, or CMPs, are manned by a single team, with most of the team members qualified to control all SPOT satellites.
Sometimes, however, the team calls for assistance from other CNES departments, including satellite design engineers, ground segment specialists, orbit determination specialists, and so forth.

SPOT 4 operational organization

Three CNES teams, specializing in three areas of expertise, contribute to spacecraft operations :

• the onboard team maintains the satellites (SPOT and Helios spacecraft) operational at all times,
• the ground segment team is responsible for all CMP hardware and software,
• the mission and operations teams, one for each family of satellites, handle all routine operations and and interfaces with the different mission centres (Spot Image and passenger mission centres).

Who does what?

All system operations are directed by the Operational Coordination Group, or GCO. This Group coordinates the activities of all participants. The GCO meets every day during routine operations and whenever necessary in the event of a problem.

Every day, the GCO reviews satellite and ground segment operations and coordinates the preparation of future activities.
The Group is chaired by the CMP manager (i.e. the head of the mission department). The GCO's members include one representative each from :

• the operations team,
• the onboard team,
• the ground segment team,
• the mission team.

Additional members can be called in at any time to discuss specific issues, including subject specialists and representatives of other operational entities (passenger mission centres, commercial operator, engineers in charge of multimission resources, etc.).

The operations team (from the missions and operations department) mans the CMP every day between 06:00 and 24:00 UTC (i.e. between 07:00 and 01:00 local time in winter and between 08:00 and 02:00 local time in summer). This team handles all routine operations while constantly monitoring the entire system. Should a problem arise, the operations team is the first to respond.

The satellite and mission specialists draw up and validate all the operational procedures executed by the operations team. These specialists are also called in the event of any problem outside the CMP's routine operations. During the six hours a day when the CMP is not manned, satellite and mission specialists are constantly on call, so that they can get to the CMP within an hour.

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page updated on the 00-06-06