Keeping the data flowing
Meet Rocío Martín Pardo, one of many behind the Meteosat Third Generation mission
As we gear up for this year’s launch of the second of the Meteosat Third Generation satellites, we’re shining a spotlight on some of the experts who are making this mission happen.
25 April 2025
25 April 2025
When Rocío Martín Pardo explains her job to a new person, she looks to Hollywood for help.
“I usually ask, ‘You know those big dish-shaped antennas on the ground that people in movies use for making alien contact?’” she said. “I work with antennas like those.”
Of course, the antennas Martín Pardo deals with are not used to facilitate communication with extraterrestrial lifeforms. Rather, as Ground Stations Operations Manager, she is responsible for ensuring that the data from the new fleet of Meteosat Third Generation satellites reach the people who use them.
Set to launch this year, the second of the satellites in this series and the first of the sounders, Meteosat Third Generation – Sounder 1, will transmit data on humidity, temperature, and wind that experts can use to forecast and track storms, among other purposes. Martín Pardo ensures that these data are transmitted continuously from the satellites to antennas in Lario, Italy and Leuk, Switzerland before being transmitted onward to the geostationary mission control centre at EUMETSAT headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany.
“Think of my team as the plug for your internet cable,” she said. “Basically, we try to make sure the cable is correctly aligned with the plug and not coming out, so that no data are lost. We are the ‘feet on the ground’ for our spacecrafts.”
She also oversees another crucial component of the MTG ground stations: the antennas in Fucino, Italy and Cheia, Romania that receive data about the health of the satellites and send them along to the control centre. There, flight control teams send commands back through those same stations in order to adjust the satellites’ flight path and instruments as needed.
She likens this to a very sophisticated and complex remote controller for a drone.
“We are like the joystick that, by pivoting, tells the spacecraft to move up or down,” Martín Pardo said.
“In addition, we also receive important information that lets us know that the satellite is in good shape through the monitoring of thousands of parameters such as battery charge status, signal strength, and temperature.”
Certain design features relating to the ground stations ensure that the data flow with as little interruption as possible. Two of the ground stations are located on opposite sides of the Wasenhorn, a more than 3,000-metre-high mountain in the Alps, increasing the likelihood that when heavy rain or a thunderstorm affects one ground station, the other will remain unaffected. And if an antenna breaks, there are several other antennas – both at the same site or at another site – that can take over.
Despite the robustness of the ground segment, sometimes the flow of data can be impeded, requiring Martín Pardo to enter detective-mode in order to identify the issue. Her biggest challenge is uncovering these more mysterious causes of interference in the data. These investigations are run very thoroughly by Martin Pardo’s team in collaboration with other teams within EUMETSAT with valuable contributions from the ground stations’ on-site teams.
“Once we know about a problem, the objective is to fix the root cause. But this isn’t always possible. When it’s not, we figure out how to work with the problem and adapt to it in the best possible way.”
Author:
Sarah Puschmann
