The overall system architecture for the Copernicus Space Component (CSC) and its evolution have been defined on the basis of user requirements coordinated by the European Commission. The Long-Term Scenario (LTS) describes the main elements of this architecture and is maintained and evolved in an iterative process in close interaction with the European Commission (COM), EUMETSAT and Copernicus Participating States.
ESA needs to guarantee the continuity of the on-going operations with the maximum level of performances for the flying Copernicus Sentinels while facing the technical and financial challenges to adapt to the evolutions of the CSC architecture.
The CSC Ground Segment (GS) is based on a service-based architecture and a clear set of operations management principles (management and architectural) hereafter referred as the ESA Earth Observation Framework (EOF).
The EOF encompasses all the activities necessary to successfully deliver the expected level of CSC operations entrusted to ESA (i.e. establishment and maintenance of the new baseline, procurement actions, operations management, reporting, etc.).
The EOF-CSC is documented throughout a complete package describing and specifying the applicable operational concepts as well as the architecture and procurement evolutions to be adopted for establishing the future CSC operations baseline (in particular with respects to the future Expansion Missions, associated with the necessary cost information to size the proposed approach and potential trade-offs).
The EOF-CSC implementation is based on service architecture with well-identified components that exchange data through Internet respecting defined interfaces. A service presents a simple interface to its consumer that abstracts away the underlying complexity. Combined with deployments on public cloud infrastructure, the service approach shall offer large adaptability to evolution of the operational scenarios in particular for what regards scalability.
Since the transformation process which started in 2019, the operational CSC Mission and Data management activities have been transferred to cloud based environments (in anticipation of the enlargement of the Copernicus Sentinel missions and in response to the ever-increasing demand for Copernicus data) and the service-oriented approach for each component of the CSC operations has been strengthened to enhance competitiveness, prevent industrial and technical lock-in and introduce the necessary operational flexibility and transparency to allow the adaptation of the Copernicus Space Component activities managed by ESA to future challenges.
Within this context, this document outlines the EOF-CSC Architecture as targeted and as implemented following the Ground Segment transformation phase during the period 2019-2022. This transformed architecture is referred as EOF Copernicus Space Component Architecture in this document or simply as EOF-CSC Architecture.
This Architecture is a representation of the overall CSC operations in terms of functional decomposition and operational data flows views. The high level architecture corresponds to the first layer of implementation and supports the implementation and the execution of all the activities related to the corresponding operational services and related procurements. The architecture reflects the fundamental principles supporting all aspects of the system, making it robust, scalable, efficient in cost and sustainable for the next 10 years without relying on unknown technological progress whilst being sufficiently flexible to benefit from any relevant future evolutions.
