January 2013 saw the start of a new project within the framework contract signed between GMV and ESA’s earth observation center, the European Space Research Institute (ESRIN). The purpose of this new project is to migrate the ALOS satellite Payload Data Ground Segment to ESRIN’s multi-mission ground segment.

ALOS is a satellite of Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) made up by 3 instruments (AVNIR, PALSAR and PRISM); its activity ceased in May 2011. The European Space Agency (ESA) is still distributing archived data to users and is responsible for the ALOS Data European Node (ADEN) covering Europe, Africa and the Middle East. ADEN’s ground segment provides users from this region with data from the Japanese ALOS satellite by means of network access and restricted-data services.

This migration project will cut ALOS ground segment maintenance costs and phase in several improvements.