Planck is an ESA mission due to be launched in August 2007 with a payload of two instruments aimed at mapping the microwave sky in 9 frequency bands in the 30-850 GHz range. In this paper, after an introduction describing the basics of the Planck mission and the technical characteristics of the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI), the ground segment activities are discussed, with special emphasis on the monitoring of instrument behaviour, data processing and computational challenges, with a discussion of the foreseen solutions.
