WSO-UV will be launched by a Zenith-2SB rocket from Baikonur in  2015 into a geosynchronous orbit. There will be two different ground stations that will receive the information from the space observatory, one in Russia, and another one in Spain. For more information about the orbit and launcher please click here.

The information received in either ground station will be sent via a fast, secure data link to the two control centres of the Mission Operation Centres (MOC). Russia and Spain will be also the hosts of the twin MOC. The Russian one will be located in Moscow, and the Spanish one will be sited at the "WSO-UV Spain headquarters", hosted by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Click on "Ground Segment" for further information.

The WSO-UV Ground Segment includes all the infrastructure and facilities involved in the preparation and execution of the WSO-UV mission operations, which typically encompass real-time monitoring and controling of the spacecraft as well as reception, processing and storage of the scientific data. The Ground Segment is developed by Russia and Spain that will coordinate the Mission and Scientific operations and provide the satellite tracking stations for the project.

The main facilities of the WSO-UV Ground Segment are:

• The Ground Station Control Centre and Ground Communications Subnet, which provide downlink-uplink communication between the spacecraft and the rest of the Ground Segment.
• The Mission Operations Centre, mainly in charge of providing the real-time spacecraft monitoring and control function. It also includes the flight dynamics function (orbit determination and attitude reconstitution).
• The Science Operations Centre (SOC), responsible for adequate scheduling and supervision of the WSO scientific operations. The SOC also comprises the Analysis System, responsible for calibrating the observations as well as verifying and processing the scientific data.
• The Scientific Data Processing Centre, which provides end-users with both mission products and associated data required for their utilization. It is responsible for the automatic pipeline processing of the received scientific data.
• Science Archive, responsible for the storage, maintenance and distribution to the internal user community of all the mission science data and associated products.

The re-use of existing systems and a modular design are two key drivers in the development of the WSO-UV Ground Segment, as well as the potential for distributed processing of the scientific data through a network of national Scientific Data Processing Centers.