#AthenaNuggets: On the Athena ground segment

Michael Watson and Natalie Web describes the elements on the ground required to operate and monitor the Athena spatial telescope and its instruments in the #AthenaNuggets 41. This also includes planning the observations, downlinking the data and processing them. The Athena operations can be addressed with a standard ESA ground segment approach, however, the software needed for the science data processing and analysis needs to work together with the sophistication of the advanced technology on which this mission's instruments are based.