The National and Foreign Stations - Key Partners in the ERS Ground Segment

J-C. Bigot & V. Beruti

The Earth Observation Application Department at ESRIN is responsible for the operation of the ERS-1 and ERS-2 ground segment, as well as performing operations for non-ESA Earth-observation missions such as for Spot, Landsat, NOAA, SeaWiFS, etc. The ERS ground segment also includes a component - the national and the foreign stations network - which is not directly operated by ESA, but relies on international agreements for data acquisition, processing and distribution.