The French processing and archiving facility: Overview and status

The CERSAT (French PAF) is part of the overall ERS-1 ground segment dedicated to archiving, processing and distribution of the low bit rate data, i.e. Radar Altimeter, Scatterometer, SAR Wave Mode and Microwave Sounder. On July 1991, once ERS-1 was successfully launched, the F/PAF started a long period of system improvement and operation acceptance tests. In July 1992, ASE decided to process with the highest priority, all the altimeter (and microwave sounder) data and fixed a new mission named “adapted mission in order to recover the backlog before mid 1993. Today, the situation is nominal for the FDP, and OPR, which are processed as soon as the precise orbit is available (the OPR product is available within six months after real time). Up to mid 1993, all the products were disseminated on CCT 6250 bpi digital tapes, fully quality controlled. In order to provide the best possible service to the user community the authors started the distribution of the data on CD-ROM and exabyte at the end of 1993. In the next months, many improvements are planned for the CERSAT. The main ones are reprocessing off Scatterometer data for the whole ERS-1 mission (in 1994) and preparation of the ERS2 mission. Now, as CERSAT is operational for RA and MWS processing, its goal is to provide the best possible service with and for the user community