An XML-based Administrative Message for LEO Earth Observation Satellites

EUMETSAT recently decided to review the structure of the Administrative Message re- transmitted by its satellites in order to standardise its content for multi-mission scenarios and to improve its content. The new Multi-Mission Administrative Message (MMAM) exploits the XML capabilities to enhance the operational message logging and history- keeping. Additionally the MMAM allows the user an improved geolocation using a simple but effective algorithm which processes an uplinked/downlinked message of very limited size.