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The 9 edition of Ogeozine has been launched. It brings two interesting success stories on
Surface Deformation MOnitoring with InSAR: In Salah CO2 Storage and Soft ground mapping: Western UAE

Welcome to the third edition of OGEOzine in 2015. Satellite images provide cheap, safe and easy access to our world from the comfort of our offices – important considerations independent of the market conditions, and we will see examples from Africa and the Middle East in this issue.

However it is not the satellite data that is important rather the availability of up-to date geo-information that can be easily used in the decision making process. So next time you are talking to someone about satellites focus on the information they are looking for rather than the beautiful pixels.

OGEOzine (n.9).pdf

Full text (ONLY for subscribers at www.earsc-portal.eu)

The Satellite Masters Conference, which will take place from 20-22 October 2015 in Berlin, will host the Award Ceremony of Europe’s major innovation competitions for space applications – the Copernicus Masters together with the European Satellite Navigation Competition.

Experts from the research and industry are selecting the winners of topic-specific challenges.

The overall winner – the 2015 Copernicus Master – will receive EUR 20,000 in cash and a satellite data package worth a further EUR 60,000, which is being provided with the financial support of the European Commission.

The Award Ceremony at the Satellite Masters Conference will be complemented by discussions and roundtables about cutting-edge satellite applications with participation of policy makers and industry experts.

The registration for participation in the event is still open.
Read more

Bari, Italy, September 22-23, 2015. Interregional cooperation is fundamental for a harmonised development of industrial capacity and systematic use of space in European Regions.

This is the rational that pushed the Puglia Aerospace Technological Cluster (DTA) and the Greek Space Technologies and Applications Cluster (si-Cluster) to jointly organise the 2nd workshop “Interregional Cooperation in Space”, that took place in Bari last 22-23 September.

This event aimed to reinforce the dialogue between the two clusters and to discuss more in detail the possible areas of cooperation, at regional, national and European level.

The workshops, that included two sessions, one political and one technical, brought together representatives from space industries and clusters, regions, space agencies, the Nereus network, academia, research institutions and universities, to share their views on how develop a space policy for the benefits of regions, territories, companies and citizens.

“Regions” commented Roberto Battiston, President of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) “are a key player in the national space policy. We need to work together and take benefit from regional and national resources to build a strategic model of a national policy in Space”

Puglia and Attica regions consider space, a pillar of their 3S strategy and they believe in the importance to invest regional resources in space, an engine for innovation, growth and knowledge.

“In 2014, the DTA signed a cooperation agreement with the si-Cluster”, highlighted Nichi Vendola, President of Nereus. “The cooperation among clusters and regions is fundamental, and at European level, our network, represents a unique platform to share expertise, to reinforce cooperation with National Space Agencies and the European Space Agency to identify synergies between the 3S Strategy at Regional and National level”.

The technical session took place on the 23rd in the premises of Sitael. The first part was devoted to the presentation of 2014-2020 European Territorial Cooperation Programmes that involve Puglia Region and Greece allowing the audience to learn more how exploit regional strategies programmes and instruments – such as particular structural funds – to support regional space activities.

Representatives from ESA, ASI, Puglia space industry, DTA, si-Cluster and the Hellenic Association of Space Industry were present to discuss how they can benefit from their own expertise and contents in order to give a concrete contribution to develop the regional dimension of space.

In compliance with the topics of the technical sessions, two main areas were investigated: In Orbit Demonstration Project (IOD) and the Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP).

For the IOD, Puglia space companies – Enginsoft, IMT, Planetek, Selex-ES, Sitael – presented their skills and technology to the topic. In particular, Sitael representatives highlighted how they can contribute to the IOD project includes its Small Platforms (50 Kg, 75 kg).

About the TEP, Planetek representatives presented the Data Fusion Centre (DFC), a web-based system for final users that provides updated knowledge of the territory and its evolution, through the provision of maps and indicators obtained by integrating Earth Observation data with other cartographic and ancillary data.

At the end of the session, Giovanni Sylos Labini, DTA BoD, and Jorge Sanchez, MoB of si-Cluster & CFSO of Corallia, summarized technologies and applications for common projects and agreed on the importance to combine their strengths in content, networks and capacities to build a common strategy to identify areas of cooperation and to understand how this could fit in the ESA, H2020 and other Work Programmes.

“This is a very good example”, commented Giovanni Sylos Labini “of how the Regional Dimension of Space can exploit operational cooperative activities among the Regions in a coordinated way with National Agencies, ESA and the EU”.

The results of this workshop pave the way for a new event in Athens next February under the umbrella of Nereus.


Political Session and presentation of 3S strategy, Bari Airport ‘Karol Wojtyla’

UrtheCast Corp. acquired in July Deimos Imaging and its Earth Observation business from Elecnor. In addition to ownership and operation of the Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 satellites, UrtheCast has acquired satellite operations related to the collection, storage, processing, analysis, distribution, and licensing of imagery captured by these and other satellites. The combination of UrtheCast and Deimos Imaging operations is expected to significantly accelerate UrtheCast’s strategies related to distribution, web platform development, and the building out of the UrtheCast Constellation.

“This is our first step off the Space Station, and an exciting growth opportunity that will help to accelerate our UrtheCast Constellation plans, while populating our platform with powerful content,” explained Scott Larson, UrtheCast Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. “By acquiring the entire Deimos satellite operations, two satellites and two ground stations, we’ve created another substantial revenue stream for the Company, and have improved our imagery archive with 6.5 billion square kilometers of Deimos imagery data.”

UrtheCast Corp. acquired in July Deimos Imaging from Elecnor, S.A. for an aggregate price of €76.4 million. In addition to ownership and operation of the Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 satellites, UrtheCast has acquired satellite operations related to the collection, storage, processing, analysis, distribution, and licensing of imagery captured by these and other satellites. In conjunction with the acquisition, UrtheCast has entered into a Mutual Cooperation Agreement with Deimos Space, S.L.U. This agreement contemplates the participation of Elecnor Deimos as a strategic implementation partner for UrtheCast’s planned 16-satellite constellation consisting of both optical and SAR instruments. Elecnor Deimos will join the other strategic partners expected to be involved in UrtheCast’s constellation, which includes various Canadian companies expected to build elements of the SAR payload, as well as Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (UK) for the spacecraft platforms and optical payload.

“We’re delighted to welcome 50 additional employees from the Deimos Imaging team, a highly experienced group with deep roots in the Earth Observation industry,” explained UrtheCast President and Chief Operating Officer, Wade Larson. “In combination with Deimos Imaging’ robust customer base, our business development program is poised for further growth this year. Deimos Imaging has an established customer base in Europe and Latin America, including the European Space Agency, as well as commercial customers in the agricultural, forestry, and land use industries.“

Fabrizio Pirondini, Deimos Imaging co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, added: “These are exciting times for the Deimos Imaging team. By joining UrtheCast, our team is ready to contribute to the shared vision of disrupting the Earth Observation industry.”


Fig. 1: UrtheCast’s cameras imaging the Earth from the International Space Station (ISS).


Fig. 2: The Empire State building (upper left) and United Nation building (bottom left) in Manhattan, New York (USA). Deimos-2 75cm pansharpened image acquired on August 2014.


Fig.3 Tidal sand formation in Moreton Bay, Brisbane (Australia) captured by Theia, UrtheCast’s 5-meter resolution camera onboard the International Space Station, on April 2015.

I am very pleased to let you know that we have just published two reports; both of which are available on our web-site. The first is our latest survey of the EO services industry and the second is the first of some case studies we are doing which bring a new approach to assessing the value created by the use of EO data.
The 2015 industry survey takes a comprehensive look at the state of the EO services industry in Europe and Canada.
The results are very detailed and provide a very effective basis on which we can monitor the sector for trends and consequently develop our messages to policy makers concerning their decisions which impact on the industry. It is based on 2014 figures and follows the first one which we made 2 years ago (2013 survey based on 2012 figures).

The survey covers the full chain of activities in the sector from the operators of satellites, through data resellers, value-added service providers and GI companies. It looks at employment and revenue figures and their evolution and it also covers a number of strategic issues and the way that the companies in Europe and Canada are adapting to the changing competitive environment. The survey is carried out in two parts with a core set of questions on-line and a second set of more strategic ones which are covered through phone conversations. We have received 152 responses to the core and 60 for the full survey; all companies completing the full survey have already completed the core part.

Probably the strongest message is that the sector is growing strongly.
All the basic measures of employment, revenues and the number of companies are growing at between 8-10% per annum. This has been relatively steady since the first survey was conducted in 2006 (not by EARSC) although there are some signs that in recent years the rate may have slowed down slightly.

Between 2008 and 2011, we found that growth was boosted by the creation of several new satellite operators with new satellites being launched during that time. From the recent survey, the growth in data sales has slowed but the value-added services part of the sector seems to have increased so that it now generates some 50% of the total sector revenues compared to 40% in 2012.

But the two figures which everyone looks for are jobs and revenues. We find that the total revenue in 2014 was €911m (€786m in 2012) and direct employment was 6811 (5928). The number of companies has grown from 389 in 2012 to 451 in 2014, with, as would be expected, most of this driven by the creation of new micro and small enterprises.

Since Copernicus is such an important programme for Europe, the survey this time had more questions linked to it than was the case in 2012. This shows the increasing interest in the programme and the ambitions of the industry to be able to exploit the public investment to develop new business. The survey was constructed to enable us to track the impact of Copernicus in future years and of course the timing of this last survey meant that any real impact coming from Copernicus is still to be seen.

The report available on our web-site is packed with charts and figures and there will shortly be an even longer report with even more data contained in it. We are also asked to carry out further analysis on specific matters using the data which we have collected and we are happy to do this. We are currently deepening our understanding of the Dutch sector and hope to be able to support studies into other countries in Europe.

As a further step, we shall start to look at some regions outside Europe and will be happy to explore this further with local organisations (if any is interested please get in contact). If we can develop consistent and comparable data sets for the industry around the world then we can all get a better view of how our sector is evolving.

The second report looks at the economic value being created by a single EO product. It is a detailed, bottom-up assessment that complements the more normal top-down approach. In this first case, we look at the use of SAR imagery to support the ice-breaking services in Finland and in Sweden. We bring a new methodology with the focus “Satellites benefiting Citizens”.

In the report, Winter Navigation in the Baltic, we demonstrate that there is a minimum of €24m and up to €116m of benefit to the Finnish and Swedish economies.

You will need to read the report to understand why there is such a large range!

Geoff Sawyer
EARSC Secretary General

EARSC EO Industry Survey Report
Case Report – Winter navigation in the Baltic

Copernicus is a European programme devoted to delivering geo­information for public policy makers throughout the EU. It has a second goal which is to help develop the downstream industry. EARSC (European Association of Remote Sensing Companies) is collecting evidence on the benefits of Copernicus for the 2017 mid­term review through this survey and another which addresses the private sector.

In 2012/2013 EARSC conducted a survey, on behalf of ESA, to map the state and health of the companies providing EO services in Europe. Results can be found at this link http://earsc.org/library (studies). We are updating the survey and shall extend the coverage to understand wider employment in the sector to include public sector organisations (PSB´s) generating or using geospatial information products, dealing with data analysis and re-distribution of EO data throughout Europe.

This survey for Public Sector Bodies aims to complete the information which will help understand the full impact of the programme. Your contribution is really valuable to us and we should appreciate you taking the time to complete the questionnaire for your institution that can be found at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XYM235W

Attached you could find the pdf questionnaire for supervision.

If you have any questions please contact Mrs. Mónica Miguel-Lago (EARSC executive secretary) secretariat@earsc.org

Introduction to the Survey

A detailed understanding of the Earth Observation sector and the trends is essential to help stakeholders to plan their activities and to assess the effectiveness of their actions. Public sector organizations have a strong interest to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available. This will help inform stakeholders on the priorities for future EO value adding activities and pave the way for other stakeholder actions. It will provide critical data to help set budgets for EO research and development.

Active participation by the PSB´s working in Earth Observation is critical to ensure that the survey can meet the objectives of furnishing a sufficiently comprehensive and accurate picture of the current Earth Observation and geo-informaiton status and health. These information will help also to identify priority issues, dominant opportunities, threats and other concerns facing the sector.

We are using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) for transmitting private information via the Internet. It essentially works through a cryptographic system that secures a connection between a client and a server. Many websites use this protocol to obtain confidential user information and it is supported in all modern browsers.

EARSC, the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies is a non-profit-making organization created in 1989. The mission of EARSC is to foster the development of European Geo-Information Service Industry. Our main objective is to stimulate a sustainable market for geo-information services using EO data, which is openly accessible to all members. More information at www.earsc.org

Thank you very much for your active participation,
EARSC secretariat.

PSB Survey final.pdf

We are very pleased to be able to send to you the results coming from the survey we conducted into the state and health of the European EO services industry.

It has been an intensive exercise for us but we are pleased with the results. We are very grateful to all companies that have spent their time responding to our questions. The attached file is the report containing the principal industry statistics.

The survey was conducted between December 2014 and May 2015. A total of 548 companies were contacted with useful responses coming from 152 of them via an on-line questionnaire which was focused on financial and numerical data.

The responses show that the EO services industry is employing over 6800 highly skilled staff and turns over some 900m Euro per annum. These and many more results are explained in the documents.

This is the second survey performed by EARSC. This brochure is a summary of the survey results; and full report will be soon available at EARSC website

We plan to revisit the industry facts and figures every two years. Regular survey will be essential to develop a full understanding of the impact that policy decisions are having on the industry. In the meantime, the results for 2014 follow which we hope you will find interesting, stimulating and helpful in your ventures.

EARSC EO Industry Survey Report

Enhancing the perception and performance of the EO service industry

Recognising a need to structure products and services, EARSC prepared and issued this taxonomy which will help suppliers and users arrive at a common understanding of what can be offered. By proposing a common language, we are certain that this is a living document and comments are welcome as It is very important to note that it should evolve continuously – in the detail

The EO taxonomy proposed address the products and services from two perspectives:

(i) A market segmentation providing a tool to help classify and understand the markets for EO services as well as to define the type of customer. The market view includes definitions of the likely organisations included in each sector and the list of EO services which are considered relevant. The market is broken down into 6 major segments: managed living resources, energy and natural resources, industrial, services, public authorities and international bodies.

As a result of the work on the Earth Observation and the Oil and Gas (EO4OG) community we have a first comprehensive view of the challenges faced by a market sector for which EO technology can be a solution.

The EO4OG challenges reflect the requirements of the O&G industry. They have been organised into 7 groups; 2 for off-shore and 5 for on-shore challenges. Each challenge maps to one or more EO products which are able to meet or partially meet it. The full list of those EO products can be found under the O&G sector of the market taxonomy.

EO4OG hasidentified a total of 224 challenges faced by the O&G industry where there is a potential for satellite EO data to play a role in providing a solution. This led to the definition of 94 products.

Each product describes requirements, spatial esolution, spatial coverage, temporal resolution, … etc

Finally 19 cases or examples showing where some of these products have been successfully applied with the O&G industry

We hope to expand on this in the future but for the moment we only have this breakdown for the Oil and Gas market sector.

(ii) A thematic segmentation provides a tool to help describe and classify the products that are offered by the service providers. This thematic taxonomy starts with the major thematic areas of which there are 6 (land services, built environment & human factors, ocean & marine, atmosphere & climate, disaster & geohazards, security). Each of these is broken down into a number of thematic segments giving 25 in total. For each segment, a number of EO services are identified for which key-words are given which help define the products which can be part of an EO service

All the information is public available under our WIKI under requested credentials.

A Taxonomy for the EO Services Market issue 2.pdf

The EARSC competition “European EO product of the year” will encourage the use of open data from GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems)

European Earth observation companies understand how important it is to be creative, innovative, and inventive in order to react to the rapid evolution in the sector. The exponential increase in data available from all sources promises radical change and the EARSC industry competition will recognize this. For the first year, under the umbrella of the EU Framework Program for Research and Innovation ConnectinGEO project, it will reward a company which has developed the most innovative product integrating an element of open data ideally discoverable through the GEOSS broker services.

Companies are invited to show their interest before 27th November 2015 to secretariat@earsc.org. During the 1st week of December a first WEBEX will be organized where companies may be briefed on which types of data are available through the GEOSSGCI Factsheet (Recipe) and making use of the GEOSS Discover Access Broker (Search & Discovery API). Partners in the ConnectinGEO H2020 project will inform via WEBEX to potential entrants on the possibilities which are presented.

The competition will run over a 6 month period (December 2015-May 2016) during which time they may adapt an existing product, develop a new product or simply promote one they have already in their catalogue. Companies will be asked to provide a short summary of the results (Report should not exceed 2 pages) which will be used as statement for the jury.

This year’s award will be announced during the EARSC annual cocktail where the winner of the EARSC “European Earth Observation company of the year” is also revealed.

Criteria: eligibility requirements & metrics

  • Any commercial product integrating an element of open data resources (ideally data discoverable by GEOSS Discover Access Broker). Note: Copernicus data is eligible.
    Report on the findings (not exceed 2 pages)
  • Explain what type of innovation product the company offers using open data and the degree to which the product depends on the open data
  • Describe the challenge: What problem this product will solve/what solution will this provide? Companies should explain the circumstances surrounding the development of this new product
  • Expected impact and clients to address

Timing

  • Interest: 27th November 2015
  • 1st WEBEX: 1st week December 2015
  • Intermediate WEBEX: guiding the companies in February 2016
  • Dead-line entries: 15th May 2016
  • Selection: the files will be judged by the jury to select the overall product winner (Period May15th-May 31st)
  • Announcement: EARSC cocktail late June 2016 in Brussels

EARSC European Product Award.pdf

The PanGeo Alliance is the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators. The Alliance has grown in its first year from four to six members, demostrating the increasing interest of international satellite operators to join forces for creating a unified, virtual satellite constellation. The PanGeo Alliance provides access to imagery and tasking opportunities from a unique and growing fleet of Earth Observation satellites. Its fleet currently provides multispectral imagery in a wide range of resolutions (from 22 m to 75 cm per pixel), and a daily global imaging capability.

During the World Satellite Business Week (WSBW) held in Paris in September and organised by Euroconsult, the PanGeo Alliance officially welcomed its sixth member: ST Electronics, a company based in Singapore which is due to launch its first EO satellite, TeLEOS-1, within months.

The PanGeo Alliance is the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators. Currently, the alliance members are: Aquila Space (US), Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology (China), Dauria Aerospace (Russia), Deimos Imaging (Spain), Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (United Arab Emirates) and ST Electronics (Singapore).

The Alliance provides access to imagery and tasking opportunities from a unique and growing constellation of Earth Observation satellites, operated by its members. The constellation encompasses multispectral imagery in a range of resolutions (from 20 m to 75 cm per pixel), and a daily global imaging capability. All PanGeo Alliance members can provide access to the full products portfolio of the whole constellation. PanGeo multi-satellite mission planning gives customers access to imaging from all Alliance satellites as well as a connection to directly request tasked imagery from the operator. PanGeo coordinates the access to member data catalogues in a seamless way, integrating data visibility and ordering from the entire Alliance archive. Customers benefit from a global network of resellers and a unified access point to new tasking and archive imagery.

Every PanGeo Alliance member brings its unique capacity to the Alliance, contributing to the formation of a multi-capable and diverse constellation:

Aquila Space is a new, innovative company which currently operates two Perseus M satellites with Automatic Identification System (AIS) payloads. Starting in 2016, the company will deploy the Landmapper-BC and Landmapper-HD constellations, composed of multispectral satellites with daily and weekly capabilities of full Earth imaging, with spatial resolutions ranging from 22 m to 2.5 m.

Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology (BSEI) is the worldwide distribtor of TH-1-01 and TH-1-02 satellites, which provide multispectral optical data at 2 m resolution. BSEI, one of the founding Alliance members, is the first Chinese commercial company introducing and marketing Chinese remote sensing satellite imagery products and services to the global market.

Dauria Aerospace is currently operating the AIS Dauria DX-1 satellite, and is currently developing its own constellation of EO satellites.

Deimos Imaging is a Spanish private company part of the UrtheCast group, and it operates two optical multispectral satellites: the Very High Resolution (VHR) Deimos-2 with a 75 cm spatial resolution and the medium resolution Deimos-1 satellite with 22 m resolution.

The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), headquertered in Dubai (UAE), owns and operates two optical multispectral satellite: the High Resolution (HR) DubaiSat-1 and the VHR DubaiSat-2 with a resolution of 2.5 m and 1.0 m respectively. MBRSC is scheduled to launch the 70-cm resolution KhalifaSat in 2017.

ST Electronics, the newcomer Alliance member, is scheduled to launch its first commercial Earth Observation satellite, the TeLEOS-1, in the last quarter of 2015. The satellite, which will provide panchromatic images with 1.0 m spatial resolution, will be launched into a near-equatorial orbit, in order to optimise the coverage of low-latitude areas, with an average revisit time of less than 16 hours.


Fig.1: The PanGeo logo depicting the Alliance six members


Fig.2: The current and future Earth Observation fleet of the PanGeo Alliance members


Fig.3: Case study image showing applications using PanGeo Alliance constellation data.