Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide operations, maintenance and upgrade services for the Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) supporting the Sentinel 2A and 2B Earth observation satellites.

The PDGS manages image reception, processing, archiving and cataloging, plus distribution to users around the world.

The service contract is worth €29m for the period from May 2018 to December 2021. It is being carried out for the European Commission as part of the Copernicus programME, in particular the ground segment subsystem of the Copernicus Space Component (CSC).

The two Sentinel 2 satellites — launched in 2015 and 2017 — continuously scan the Earth’s surface. Together, they provide updates images of the entire land surface of our planet in five days, with a resolution of 10 to 60m.

The contract was won by Thales Alenia Space at the head of a consortium that comprises Telespazio – a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%) - and its subsidiary Telespazio France. Other partners are Thales Services (France), Advanced Computer Systems (Italy), Deimos Space (Spain) and C-S Systèmes d’information (France).