With its national and international ground stations, the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) provides direct access to the data from Earth observation satellites, processes the data into information products, distributes them to the users and stores all the data in the German Satellite Data Archive (D-SDA) on a long-term basis. With geoscientific work on atmospheric, global change and civil security research, DFD provides access to remote sensing products and solutions and thus consolidates their application in the private and scientific sectors. It operates subject-specific ‘user services’, in particular the World Data Center for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere (WDC-RSAT) and the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI). Together with the Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF), DFD forms the Earth Observation Center (EOC) – the centre of excellence for Earth observation in Germany.