European Space Imaging's IKONOS receiving and processing center is located at the DLR (German Aerospace Center) facility in Oberpfaffenhofen, 20 km West of Munich. As European Space Imaging’s technology partner, DLR staff operates the IKONOS ground station. The reception cone around the ground station’s antenna covers nearly 18 million square kilometres in Europe and Northern Africa.
European Space Imaging’s ground station has the capability to plan image collections, task the satellite, receive images directly from the IKONOS satellite, and process all final imagery products in-house. Thus, European Space Imaging has the full control over where and when to collect in Europe with a quick and flexible decision making. The ground station’s system takes into account local real-time weather data to optimize the collection success and allow for immediate changes in tasking. These changes can occur up to a few minutes prior to the imaging overpass and could also include additional last-minute orders. The images are downlinked basically at the same moment that they are collected, and due to a fast subsequent processing, the final image products can be ready for shipment to the customer within 30 minutes after collection.
The buildings are shown to the West of the runway on this IKONOS 1-m color image.
