MCS monitors satellite status and controls satellite operations. MCS consists of antenna and RF subsystem, Command Ranging & Telemetry (CRT) unit, computer equipment with redundancy, and MCS software. SI designs and supplies satellite specific ground station hardware and software.

ANTENNA & RF SUBSYSTEM
Commercially-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) RF equipment and antenna are used to communicate with the satellite. Antenna is selected to have a sufficient gain that can satisfy the link budget. The antenna control unit performs automatic tracking and Doppler shift compensation.
 
CRT UNIT
CRT controls the data path between ground PC network and RF equipment. Downlink signals from the satellite are converted to data bit streams and directed to the PC network for display and storage. CRT also handles telecommands to be transmitted to the satellite.
 
COMPUTER EQUIPMENT & SOFTWARE
The primary functions of MCS are satellite state-of-health telemetry processing, satellite commanding, satellite operation planning, payload and instrument operations, spacecraft subsystem performance evaluation, tracking data processing and orbit determination. SI-developed software design employs an open-architecture and x-layered-software approach, which minimizes the skill level required for operators, software developers and maintainers. Our software applications constitute the tool x-layer and support basic functions of spacecraft / payload scheduling, subsystem analysis, telemetry processing, and command processing. All of these application packages run on PCs.