The Cryosat Ground Segment will be organised around a single Esa ground station, located in Kiruna-Salmijarvi, in Northern Sweden. This is where contact will be established with the satellite, for about 10 minutes at a time, 11 times a day, during which commands will be sent to the satellite and data downloaded.

Mission planning, however, will be performed in Esa-Esrin for all matters relating to the payload (mainly instrument activity planning) and in Esa-Esoc for everything concerning the platform (mainly orbit maintenance through manoeuvres).

The large amount of data received from the payload, and in particular from the altimeter, will be processed at Kiruna-Salmijarvi. Data products at Level-1b (radar echoes geolocated and corrected for instrument features) and Level-2 (ground elevation and ice freeboard, corrected for atmospheric and geophysical effects) will be systematically produced by Esa.

All external auxiliary data needed for data processing, in particular the Precise Orbit Determination, will be received from the Ssalto centre operated by Cnes in Toulouse, with one exception - dynamic sea ice concentration will be received from the  Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at UCL in London.

Further information: Cryosat ground segment (Esa website)