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Since 1986, the “European Space Directory” is published each year in March by ESD Partners, formerly SEVIG PRESS.

It provides the most up-to-date and accurate information and has become over the years THE reference book for any company or institution working with the European space market.
The European Space Directory is endorsed by EUROSPACE and benefits from the technical and moral support of the European Space Agency (ESA).
You can browse the contents of the 2016 Edition here
For ordering (price 220 Euro + 8 Euro shipping and handling, VAT not included), download the order form here

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Spacemetric has won an open procurement to build and operate a Copernicus data hub for Sweden’s space agency, the Swedish National Space Board. The so­called “SWEA” system is being implemented over the coming months with operations commencing already in early 2017.


“We are very pleased to have won the competitive process to provide the Copernicus data hub” says Mikael Stern, Spacemetric CEO, “clearly showing the technical and commercial credibility of our satellite data solutions”.

The SWEA data archive is the long­term solution for the storage and distribution of imagery from the Sentinel satellites of the European Copernicus programme for Earth observation. It will host imagery from the the various microwave and optical sensors of the Sentinel satellites, providing automated access, visualisation, processing and delivery of products from these data to users in Sweden. In addition, the data hub will provide a service interface, making it possible for users from the public sector and commercial companies to deploy their own algorithms, workflows and services. This will leverage the data and infrastructure resources of the hub, enabling the creation of new products and services based on satellite imagery.

“SWEA is a key component in our continuing investments in Earth observation and secures Copernicus data for Swedish users” commented Karin Holmquist of the Swedish National Space Board.


Full-swath Sentinel 2 data over Sweden in false colours

About Spacemetric:

Spacemetric is a leading provider of image management solutions for satellite and airborne sensors, delivering enhanced data access and streamlined processing from image acquisition to analysis. Solutions are built around the company’s Keystone Image Management System which forms the core of our engagements with sensor operators, data providers and solution integrators to meet demanding operational needs.

Contact:
Ian Spence, Marketing Director, Spacemetric AB Tel: +44 7727 448821 Email:i s@spacemetric.com
Web: w ww.spacemetric.com

STOCKHOLM. To meet the rapidly growing demand for more advanced industrial airborne inspection tools, Sky Eye Innovations, producers of a powerful UAV solution with unique capabilities to control the most advanced sensing technologies on the market, and Spacemetric, a provider of world­class image data management software solutions, announce the start of a strategic partnership to provide powerful turnkey solutions for collection, storage and management of data from airborne sensors.

More and more organisations see the enormous potential for increased efficiency in inspection, monitoring, asset assessment and preventative maintenance through use of drones (UAVs) equipped with different sensor technologies. The huge growth in drone use has been helped by software tools that support data collection and data processing, many of them provided through the cloud. The new partnership connects a leading image management tool with a very high­performance UAV solution built for daily use in the most demanding conditions. The result is an integrated and highly effective inspection tool for preventative maintenance and decision making that uniquely combines imagery from UAVs, satellites and handheld sensor units.

“At Spacemetric we’ve actively developed our software to handle the growing volumes of data coming from UAVs. We’ve actively been looking for a UAV partner and are very impressed by Sky Eye Innovations and their unique offering, which is much in demand” says Erik Eklund, who is responsible for Spacemetric’s new Airborne business area.

The partnership creates a unique set of expertise. Spacemetric specialises in solutions to manage large volumes of imagery and streamline the process of efficient capture and storage to accelerated sharing and delivery of geospatial imagery for users like the Swedish Air Force. Sky Eye Innovations contributes with development and manufacturing of extremely performant UAV platform solutions that alone in the world are able to lift and control FLIR System’s most advanced cameras used for industrial inspection and monitoring tasks.

“Sky Eye Innovations are constantly working on improvements and looking at new ways to address the challenges the industry is experiencing. Our ultimate goal is to offer cost­effective solutions that drive productivity and improve working conditions. To achieve this we need our UAV platform to excel and collaboration with world­leading expertise is critical to providing high quality customized solutions that are in demand. Therefore we are proud to announce our partnership with Spacemetric, and the next generation of industrial inspection tools this will lead to”, says Daniel Sällstedt, founder and CEO of N.M.M Innovation Sweden AB, aka Sky Eye Innovations.



Gas inspection in the Middle East Photo: Mark Murray

About Spacemetric:
Spacemetric is the company behind the Keystone software that handles image and video data from airborne and satellite sensors. One customer is the Swedish Armed Forces where the system is used for reconnaissance data from the Gripen jet fighter and all video data from the Army’s UAV 03, which is currently serving in peacekeeping operations in Mali.

Om Sky Eye Innovations:
We build extreme performance unmanned aerial systems for high­ end industrial use . Sky Eye Innovations offers a turnkey UAV platform for advanced sensing technology, which includes both hardware and software, that is reliable and durable and can work under extreme conditions. With our platform, we help companies within Industry, Surveillance, Search and Rescue and Film and Media who want to become more efficient, reduce costs, increase their output and, most importantly, reduce the risks for their staff.

Contacts:
Erik Eklund telnr? Spacemetric
Daniel Sällstedt
Sky Eye Innovations +46730844723 daniel@skyeyeinnovations.se

Researchers using InSAR satellite images (Envisat ASAR images and TerraSAR-X images) have determined that the geology under the city of Beijing is collapsing due to excessive pumping of groundwater. The imagery revealed that the central business district is subsiding by as much as 11 centimeters each year.

InSAR is a powerful tool for monitoring land subsidence. InSAR derived subsidence rate maps have allowed for a comprehensive spatio-temporal analysis to identify the main triggering factors of land subsidence. Some interesting relationships in terms of land subsidence were found with groundwater level, active faults, accumulated soft soil thickness and different aquifer types.

Th researchers are now working on summarizing the impacts that this level of subsidence will have on the city’s infrastructure.

The city’s groundwater had accumulated for centuries under the dry plain. Wells and pumping have caused the soil to dry out like a sponge and to contract.

The whole city is said to be impacted, but the most dramatic impact is in the city’s Chaoyang district.

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Google has made major upgrades to its popular mapping service Google Maps and its addictive bird’s eye view application, Google Earth, giving them fresh imagery from Landsat 8 satellite and new processing techniques for creating even sharper images.

In an effort to create a cloud-free map of the Earth, Google looked at millions of images and took the clearest pixels to stitch together a cloudless and seamless image.

The new imagery is available across all of Google’s mapping products. To check it out, users simply open up Google Earth or turn on the satellite layer in Google Maps.

Landsat 8 is an American Earth observation satellite that images the whole planet every 16 days, and captures images with greater detail and truer colors than done previously, at an unprecedented frequency, creating twice as many images as Landsat 7 does every day.

The Landsat 8 satellite, which launched into orbit in 2013, is the newest sensor in the US Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA Landsat Program.

Using the same publicly available Earth Engine APIs employed by scientists worldwide, Google mined data from nearly a petabyte of Landsat imagery — more than 700 trillion individual pixels — to choose the best cloud-free pixels.

“To put that in perspective, 700 trillion pixels is 7,000 times more pixels than the estimated number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, or 70 times more pixels than the estimated number of galaxies in the universe,” Chris Herwig, program manager for Google Earth Engine, wrote in a June 27 blog postannouncing the upgrades.

For example, comparing two images of Manhattan in New York City on the company’s Google Maps blog, one can see the difference in detail. In the new view of New York City, details like skyscrapers, building shadows, and baseball and softball fields in Central Park show up with a much higher level of clarity and sharpness.

“Three years ago we introduced a cloud-free mosaic of the world in Google Earth. Today we’re rolling out an even more beautiful and seamless version, with fresh imagery from Landsat 8 satellite and new processing techniques for sharper images than ever before,” Herwig wrote.

Landsat has observed the Earth continuously from 1972 to the present day and offers a wealth of information on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time. Herwig noted the update to Maps and Earth was made possible in a large part thanks to the program and its commitment to free and accessible open data.

The update also allowed Google to fill in some large diagonal gaps in maps that were affected by a hardware failure on Landsat 7 images captured after 2003.

Not one to be left out of the fun, Google’s Street View team, responsible for driving around the world and mapping the world from a human-scaled perspective, has been going on some wild rides of its own as of late, including one to the colorful and exotic Coral Triangle in Asia, home of the richest coral reefs on Earth, and the horrific prison cells of Robben Island, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in solitary confinement before attaining freedom.

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At its 85th session, the EUMETSAT Council endorsed a new strategy establishing the framework for EUMETSAT activities in the next decade.

Named “Challenge 2025”, the new strategy targets the smooth transition from the current to the next generation of EUMETSAT satellite systems and responds to the “big data” challenge with a roadmap of pathfinder projects for future data services aimed at providing more and better data access services for users.

The strategy also foresees a continued role of EUMETSAT in Copernicus and further cooperation with international partners.

As a first step in the implementation of the strategy “Challenge 2025”, the Council approved to move Meteosat-8 over the Indian Ocean, to 41.5°E longitude, as EUMETSAT’s best-effort contribution to multi-partner Indian Ocean Data Coverage (IODC) services involving also geostationary satellites from India, Russia and China.

The implementation of the EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS-SG) programme progressed further at this Council session, with the approval of the cooperation agreement with the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) for the development of three METimage instruments and of one important ground segment development contract covering all systems required to command and control the operations of the Metop-SG satellites from Darmstadt.

Council finally approved the Third Continuous Development and Operations Phase (CDOP 3) of EUMETSAT’s eight Satellite Application Facilities (SAF) covering the period 2017-2022. During CDOP-3, the SAFs will continue to deliver and enhance the current set of operational environmental products and develop new products, including “Day 1” products from MTG and EPS-SG.

About EUMETSAT

The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites is an intergovernmental organisation based in Darmstadt, Germany, currently with 30 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom) and one Cooperating State (Serbia).

EUMETSAT operates the geostationary satellites Meteosat-8, -9, -10 and -11 over Europe and Africa, and Meteosat-7 over the Indian Ocean.

EUMETSAT also operates two Metop polar-orbiting satellites as part of the Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS) shared with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

EUMETSAT is also a partner in the cooperative high precision ocean altimetry Jason missions involving Europe and the United States (Jason-2, Jason-3 and Jason-CS/Sentinel-6).

The data and products from EUMETSAT’s satellites are vital to weather forecasting and make a significant contribution to the monitoring of environment and climate change.

After completion of the in-orbit commissioning of Sentinel-3A, EUMETSAT will exploit the Copernicus Sentinel-3 marine mission in cooperation withESA and on behalf of the EU, and deliver data services to the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service and users.

Media Relations EUMETSAT:
Tel: +49 6151 807 7320
Fax: +49 6151 807 7321
Email: press@eumetsat.int

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Satellite data can be applied for monitoring almost any natural hazard across the globe, and is therefore a crucial component for all phases of the disaster management cycle. More and more satellite imagery is available for free, and the image archives are continuously growing. This is a great data treasure, which is still underexploited for operational disaster and risk management. Some good examples of data usage are outlined below.

In relation to the response phase of a disaster, the Copernicus GIO Emergency Mapping Service (GIO EMS-Mapping) utilises freely accessible satellite data (such as Sentinel-1imagery), as well as commercial data, to provide all involved actors with timely and accurate geospatial information relating to that particular disaster. The resulting information products can be used as supplied (e.g. as digital or printed map outputs), or may be further combined with other data sources (e.g. as digital feature sets in a geographic information system). In both cases, it is hugely beneficial for supporting geospatial analysis and decision making processes of emergency managers.

In the recovery phase of the disaster management cycle free satellite data is used for loss and damage assessment. For example, through the use of high resolution freely accessible satellite imagery (such as SPOT imagery), it is possible to analyse the amount of land lost to burning following a forest fire. By using free satellite data for loss and damage assessment, this enables emergency managers to more effectively plan how they can go about the recovery/rehabilitation of a disaster struck area.

Free satellite data is also used to aid with Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Exposure, vulnerability and risk assessments make use of freely accessible satellite data to map areas that are vulnerable or at high risk to natural disasters, and by utlising this knowledge, emergency managers can increase mitigation efforts in these vulnerable areas in order to reduce the impact of any future occurring disasters. UN-SPIDER is an active member of the Global Partnership, which spearhead efforts regarding the use of Earth Observations and Space-based applications to contribute to the monitoring and implementing of the targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Explicitely, space-based information can contribute to target b on affected population (e.g. by using of EO-derived population data, downscaling of administrative population data, use of settlement information like the Global Human Settlement Layer or the Global Urban Footprint), to target c on economic loss (e.g. economic loss in the agricultural sector using satellite-derived crop information), to target d on disaster damage to critical infrastructure (e.g. exposure and vulnerability mapping at national level), and target g on early warning and risk information (e.g. using image archives for information on changes in risks over time).

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ECMWF

Mr Garcés de Marcilla, could you tell us a bit about the history of ECMWF, how your organization started and what is your mission? What has been the greatest challenge encountered?

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an intergovernmental organisation supported by 34 states. The organisation was established in 1975 when some European nations decided to pool their resources together to tackle the issues surrounding weather and environmental monitoring that were bigger than any of them should or could address individually.

ECMWF is one of the six members of the Co-ordinated Organisations, which also include the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

Can you describe briefly the main services which ECMWF provides? And who do you consider are the main customers for these services?

ECMWF is both a research institute and a 24/7 operational service, producing and disseminating numerical weather predictions to its Member and Co-operating States. This data is also fully available to the national meteorological services in these states. The Centre also offers a catalogue of forecast data that can be purchased by businesses worldwide and other commercial customers.

Of course since 2015, ECMWF also provides the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service and its freely available tools and data regarding atmospheric composition and forecasts as well as the Copernicus Climate Change service, which is still in development.

The potential customers for Copernicus services are manifold; we want policy makers and local planners, industry and science communities to all use the tools and data provided to invest with confidence, develop new products and services, as well as adapt and manage our existing infrastructure to ensure resilience.

COPERNICUS SERVICES (CAMS and C3S)

ECMWF as Entrusted Entity responsible for the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Services (CAMS) and Copernicus Climate Change Services (C3S)

Can you describe what becoming an “Entrusted Entity (EE)” for the Copernicus Services means for your organization?

We are very proud that the European Commission (EC) and the Copernicus Member States have entrusted ECMWF to develop and operate two Copernicus Services on their behalf, CAMS and C3S. We also assist with delivery of a third (the Emergency Management Service) through ECMWF’s flood forecasting capabilities. We see this as proof of a huge amount of trust in – and respect for – what ECMWF does and recognition of our international status and excellent track record in delivering value-for-money environment-related projects and programmes. We also see it as an exciting and challenging opportunity to bring the benefits of the Copernicus programme to society.

ECMWF was founded on the idea that weather is bigger than any one individual country; we are applying the same principle to the Copernicus Services we are implementing – a European approach to developing the products for a global availability.

How much of the work as an EE will be performed by ECMWF and how much outsourced to partners? Are many of your partners coming from the private sector?

ECMWF is responsible for the implementation and management of the services as a whole but specific developments, provision of many service elements, quality assurance and outreach projects require the specialist skills of partners in Europe. The vast majority of work will be contracted out to organisations across Europe including the private sector, meteorological organizations and scientific institutions through open competition.

What plans are there for controlling the quality of the services; provision of reliable, timely and up to date information?

Quality control is extremely important to us and is one of the main pillars of work we have identified for delivering the services successfully. Establishing the Copernicus Services as a worldwide reference is one of our top priorities, as this is instrumental to their success. This requires the implementation of rigorous, independent and scientifically sound quality and evaluation control processes for all services and products. These processes will evaluate the underpinning science, the quality of the service, and how the services address the needs of the users’ communities. We benefitted of course from ECMWF’s successful delivery and the validation of the atmosphere and climate change service pre-cursor project MACC, particularly CAMS which is now operational and receiving around 280 million observations every 12 hours and producing around 14,000 maps every day. We recently upgraded the spatial resolution and doubled number of composition forecasts for the service following months of validation by European experts in atmospheric composition, such as the Dutch Met Service KMNI. Only once we had the findings of their validation report did we go ahead with the enhancement.

You’ll also see from our website that C3S has recently invited tenders for quality control of its products and services, including a quality control function for the Climate Data Store, Essential Climate Variable products from model-based reanalyses and observations respectively, as well as its multi-model seasonal forecast products and the Sectoral Information System.

A Sectoral Information System (SIS) will build on the Climate Data Store (CDS) to deliver services tailored to the needs of particular industrial sectors. Could you tell us more about this approach?

As part of the implementation of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ECMWF aims to develop a Sectoral Information System (SIS), which will provide sector-specific shop windows for the C3S Climate Data Store. Several SIS proof-of-concept projects are now under way. They will serve to develop tools and products which will be tested directly with users from sectors to which climate information is particularly relevant.

From these proof-of-concept projects, and based on interactions with users, C3S will select a set of tailored sectoral climate indicators to be routinely produced and visualised. It will support the tools and promote best practices so that these sectors can take advantage of C3S climate information to enhance their businesses. There are seven proof of concept projects, they focus on water, energy, insurance, agriculture and infrastructure and health sectors.

Each of the proofs of concept is run by a consortium of organisations that bring sector-specific expertise to the projects. These are:

  • The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI): SWICCA (Water) and UrbanSIS (Infrastructure & Health) projects
  • The University of East Anglia: the European Climatic Energy Mixes (ECEM) project (Energy)
  • Telespazio: Agriclass project (Agriculture)
  • CGI: Wind Storm Climate Service (WISC) project (Insurance)
  • Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH): End-to-end Demonstrator for Improved Decision Making in the Water Sector in Europe (EDgE) project (Water)
  • Le Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE): Clim4energy project (Energy)

ECMWF will hold in the last quarter of 2016 a workshop dedicated to these ongoing SIS projects. As this event will address the SIS projects scope, progress and schedule, we believe it can be of significant interest to the EARSC community. We regard EARSC entities as potential providers for these projects and at the same time as SIS users, helping the development of further or improved downstream services.

Finally, and beyond the projects mentioned above, it is worth mentioning that other Sectors will be addressed with specific calls to be issued in 2017 and 2018.

INDUSTRY & PROCUREMENT

Turning to the question of the relationship between the private sector and ECWMF:

Are you satisfied so far with company’s responses to the calls which you have made? If not, do you see measures which you could take to increase this? How could EARSC help you in this respect?

We have some really excellent partners as a result of our calls for tender responses but, naturally, we always want the widest possible spread of companies with the right expertise to choose from. We want to emphasize that ECMWF is fully open to industry and private sector and that we believe that a strong participation of industry and private companies will be of great benefit to the exploitation of the Copernicus CAMS and C3S Services; EARSC’s network therefore could be hugely helpful in promoting our ITTs far and wide. For example, in July we’ll have an Invitation to Tender via the CAMS website for developing use-cases to stimulate innovative ideas and support the development of downstream applications; this would be the perfect opportunity for a bit of EARSC promotional assistance. Further ITTs for elements of the services´ development and operations will be issued in the short, medium and long term. We encourage the private sector to follow closely our ITT calls, as they truly represent opportunities for competitive contributions of the private sector, and offer sustainable business prospects in the long term.

EARSC is seeking to develop a roadmap for co-operation between industry and the 7 EE’s supplying the Copernicus Services. Would ECMWF be ready to support this process and what specifically can you suggest should be covered?

The roadmap for the implementation of the CAMS and C3S Copernicus Services is defined in the Delegation Agreement signed by the EC and ECMWF, and it is under the control of the EU Copernicus Committee of Member States. Having said that, we would be pleased to discuss and support initiatives of cooperation with EARSC. One cooperation workstream could be dedicated to jointly explore how the CAMS and C3S Services can further contribute to the development of downstream services.

FUTURE

Finally, looking to the future;

How do you see the Copernicus Services managed by ECWMF changing over the next few years?

The services will get stronger and stronger. CAMS will consolidate its unique usefulness by adding new products to its portfolio and C3S will enter the first phase of its operational stage by 2018. Our communication and outreach for the services should also become more refined and targetted as we gain more insight in to who our users and potential users are and what needs they want us to address to make the services absolutely indispensable in their working lives.

Bio
Juan Garcés de Marcilla is Director of the Copernicus Services operated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Union. He has overall responsibility for the strategic development and implementation of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
Prior to his appointment at ECMWF, Juan was CEO at Thales Alenia Space, Spain, a company that designs and manufactures on-board systems and equipment for spacecraft. As CEO, Juan was responsible for the company´s strategy, business development, finance and industrial operations. He also acted as Technical Director, CTO, for Eutelsat in Paris, France.
Juan was born in Spain and obtained his University Degree in Engineering at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

If the malfunction is caused by a hardware failure, there might be no way to repair it, leaving Taiwan dependent on other nations for months

A potential hardware failure on FORMOSAT-2 might cause the nation to lose its first locally developed Earth observation satellite, the National Space Organization (NSPO) said yesterday.

Two of the satellite’s reaction wheels, which are used to rotate and position it, are malfunctioning, so it cannot properly conduct observation or take pictures, NSPO Director Chang Guey-shin (張桂祥) said.

The satellite had made do with three reaction wheels since it lost one in 2013, and the NSPO received abnormal signals from the FORMOSAT-2 on Tuesday last week, which indicated that another reaction wheel had malfunctioned, Chang said.

“At least three properly functioning reaction wheels are needed to control the satellite. The possibility of repair is low if the fault was caused by hardware failure. There would be a better chance of being able to fix the malfunction if it was the electronic interface that went wrong. However, preliminary analysis suggested that hardware failure might be the cause,” he said.

The satellite was put in “safe mode,” and its missions were suspended pending further analysis and repair attempts.

It will take two or three weeks for experts to analyze the problems and propose solutions.

“The satellite’s condition was more stable than a few days ago. We feared that the FORMOSAT-2 might lose power because its solar panels did not point to the sun accurately. However, the problem was fixed, and we have more time to understand the reaction wheel problems,” Chang said.

“If the satellite cannot be repaired and has to be decommissioned, there would be no Taiwan-made satellite orbiting the Earth for a few months until FORMOSAT-5 is launched. The launch is expected to take place in California in autumn, but the date remains uncertain,” he said.

During the window period in which the nation might not have any functioning satellite, Taiwan would have to ask for international assistance in satellite monitoring in the event of a natural disaster, National Applied Research Laboratories’ Wang Jough-tai (王作臺) said.

FORMOSAT-2 was launched in May 2004, and it has taken 2.55 million pictures of the planet’s surface, each of which covers an area four times the size of Taiwan.

The satellite provided valuable images for scientific research, environmental monitoring, natural disaster prevention and evaluation, urban planning and other applications for the past 12 years.

However, it was designed to last only five years, so the malfunction was not unexpected, Wang said.

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NASA is seriously planning robotic service mission on Low Earth Orbit. Since 2009 all NASA efforts which are referring to refueling, tuning or servicing satellites in space are developed by Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO). This institution remaining inside NASA is able to use all necessary Technologies developed by Agency to reach its ultimate goal. This objective is to create affordable technology which could be used by U.S. space industry to become a leader in servicing satellite in orbit and change experimental status of present technology to something which is utilized regularly and commercially available.

One of the key programs developed by SSCO was Restore-L; it is planned mission of robotic spacecraft which will be equipped in various instruments helping in refueling other satellite in space. In spite of main objective of testing technology of autonomic rendez vous, docking (basically catching other spacecraft with special robotic arm) and refueling, it is planned to be utilized in future space exploration planned by NASA including manned mission to Mars, Asteroid Redirect Mission or Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission.

It seems that works on Restore-L are quite advanced, because in May 2016 NASA decided about moving forward in time first experimental mission. New date was set for 2020, and recently on June 23, 2016, it was announced that first object of experiment was chosen. It will be Landsat-7, Earth observation satellite manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Launched on April 15, 1999. Weighing 2200 kg satellite was placed on orbit on almost circular orbit with following parameters: 669 km x 698 km with inclination at 98.2°. Landsat-7 was operated jointly by NASA, NOAA and US Geological Survey; data provided by satellite containing high resolution pictures were utilized for general monitoring, dISAster relief, cartography and planning.

Restore-L spacecraft will be equipped in autonomous navigation system and avionics which will be used during flight and rendez vous. This system was named RAVEN (Relative Navigation System-upgraded version of ARGON system tested in 2013 under MISSE-7 and STP-H4 programs) and will based on computers, cameras and proximity sensors; system will be heavily complicated due the fact that rendez vous will be performed with speed at least of 16000 km/h and necessary course corrections will be performed in real time. Spacecraft will be also equipped with robotic arm and special set of tools and sensors to perform refueling (it is worth to remind that Landsat-7 was not equipped with any special valve for in orbit refueling). Robotic arm was not designed from the scratch, but its construction was based on DARPA Spacecraft for the Universal Modification of Orbits and Front-end Robotics Enabling Near-term Demonstration (FREND) project which was developed in the mid-2000. Arm will be equipped in multiple joints to provide seven degrees of freedom combined with force and torque sensors in the end of arm. Equipping arm with cameras will provide full control of the refueling and attaching process. Next important part of the Restore-L is refueling system called Propellant Transfer System (PTS). Its construction is based on oxidizer tank, pumps, flow, temperature and pressure sensors, special hose (first tests in low gravity were performed already in 2013) and oxidizer nozzle tool. System will operate with high pressure providing fast, bubble free, and requiring very little power flow from Restore-L oxidizer tank to Landsat-7. Refueling nozzle is designed to operate with Landsat-7 valve which was not originally designed to be opened in space. It will provide sealed connection during refueling and next it will close properly valve of satellite to avoid leakage. Restore-L will be powered with solar arrays and will be equipped for propulsion to perform rendez vous. Still detaILS on propulsion were not unveiled but surely it will be throttable propulsion with possibility of multiple burns combined with advanced maneuver thrusters system.

Restore-L will be first mission in history which covers refueling on Low Earth Orbit. Commercial companies like Orbital ATK offer similar solutions for GEO satellites (Orbital ATK have signed already contract for refueling satellites operated by Intelsat with first mission ot their MEV in 2019). GEO satellites are usually large and expensive spacecrafts, and their operators are interested in investing money in refueling technology in spite of costs, because price for new satellites is also very high. Satellites operating on LEO are often research satellites which are extremely useful, but commercial companies are not interested in independent development of refueling technology due the low probability of refunding such investment. NASA effort will be surely support for space industry, not to mention about obvious savings for NASA or DoD.

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