The Ground Segment is a distributed segment utilizing NASA, CNES and commercial resources. The ground segment operation and its relationship to the other CALIPSO Mission segments is depicted on the left.

The Ground System is composed of three principal components:

The Mission Operations Ground System (MOGS), located in the United States (NASA LaRC), is comprised of two major sub-systems: the Mission Operations Control Center (MOCC) and the Payload Data Delivery System (PDDS).

The MOCC, located at the NASA LaRC in Hampton, Virginia, is responsible for overall mission coordination and Payload operations. MOCC roles and responsibilities include mission planning and scheduling, formation flying coordination, Payload command generation, Payload health and status monitoring, trend analysis, data management, and Payload sustaining engineering.
The PDDS developped and managed by Ball Aerospace. The PDDS infrastructure includes a primary and secondary X-Band Ground Station able to recieve the payload telemetry several times a day, a Network Management Facility performing level zero processing, and data services transferring data files to NASA LaRC.
 
The Satellite Operations Ground System (SOGS), located in France, is composed of four major sub-systems:

The Telemetry and Telecommand Earth Terminal (TTCET), S-Band Ground Station located in Aussaguel, responsible for sending satellite telecommands and recieving housekeeping telemetry, supports S-Band command and telemetry functions.
The Infrared Imager Technical Expertise Center is dedicated to the IIR inflight monitoring. It is located in Toulouse and was developed by CapGemini under CNES prime contractorship.
The Satellite Operations Control Center (SOCC), located in Toulouse, serves as the Satellite control center.
The Data Control Network (DNC) provides communication between the SOCC, the S-band ground station, and the external Interfaces of the SOGS, notably the MOCC in the US.
 
The Science Segment, located in the United States (NASA LaRC) :

The Atmospheric Sciences Data Center in charge of archiving and distributing CALIPSO standard products to users
 
Moreover, in France, the ICARE Data Management and Processing Center distributes the products of the A-Train missions as well as the multi-sensors products realised from those data.