The planned growth of scientific and commercial space exploitation in the areas of remote sensing, astronomy, solar terrestrial physics and microgravity requires the deployment of a space and ground segment infrastructure capable of delivering satellite data, in a timely fashion, to users from a vast array of satellite sensor systems. In order for users to access data, a ground segment will need to be established to support the archiving, processing and dissemination of the data to a wider range of users than has hitherto been the case. It is these aspects that are addressed by this work. Volume 1 summarizes the use of satellite data and puts the design of the ground segment into an applications context. Many different applications areas are discussed in order to understand the use of the data to draw up requirements for the design of a generic ground segment.