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In the Earth Observation market, Elecnor Deimos is particularly active in ground segment systems and EO applications, as well as continuing with a wide range of activities across the Space sector including the ability to develop and market end-to end earth observation missions, as in Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 missions.

Ground Segment systems is one of the key activities of Deimos, currently involving more than 50% of the staff of the company, and representing more than 50% of the turnover of the company. The experience gained in developing the full ground segment for the Earth observation programmes of the European Space Agency, has led to the creation of the gs4EO® suite of products providing a compact Flight Operations Segment (FOS) including mission control systems, flight dynamics and mission planning, and a Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) including acquisition, processing, archiving, distribution, calibration and monitoring.

The gs4EO® suite has a modular design and aims to provide flexible solutions in many different contexts, for example some components have been integrated into the UK Collaborative Ground Segment being developed for the UK Space Agency by the Satellite Applications Catapult.

As a module of gs4EO® suite Elecnor Deimos develops and markets the system for satellite image reception, Direct receiving stations (DRS) to download, process, distribute and archive DEIMOS-1 & DEIMOS-2 satellite data. Deimos has recently been awarded two contracts for Direct Receiving Stations of Deimos-2 (customers cannot be disclosed).

In the downstream market Deimos is building its application capability under the banner service4EO with a range of products targeted at the growing markets in agriculture services and Smart Cities. R&D work in Deimos subsidiaries in Portugal (Deimos Engenharia) and UK (Deimos Space UK) includes services for irrigation planning, an integrated precision agriculture service using satellite and UAV data and an automated urban mapping service.

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We deliver our products and services in a large number of consulting domains.
We are focused on quality, technical excellence and customer satisfaction.

GAF was founded 30 years ago as a university spin-off and since then it has enjoyed a steady growth curve and sustained profitability. Today GAF is proud to be one of the world`s leading companies in the geo-spatial market. GAF is headquartered in Munich, Germany with a branch in Neustrelitz (North of Berlin). More than 200 highly qualified staff and 30 years of experience are ready to serve you. We have a successful track record of more than 1000 projects in 100 countries globally and we have project offices worldwide. We work for industry and private sector, for international institutions and development banks, national authorities and clients.

What is our business?

Geo-data, technology, solutions, products

We offer a comprehensive end-to-end service portfolio: earth observation data, geo-products, integrating space technologies (satellite communication, earth observation and positioning) into real world applications. Software and systems, technology consulting and institutional strengthening. We are keeping pace with the accelerating technological developments in our professional lives for your benefit.

Development, sustainability, compliance

We work in the fields of natural resources and raw materials, environment and water, forestry and agriculture, infrastructure and emergency management. We provide sustainable solutions in resources management, inventories, monitoring and planning based on sound management practice, involving leading experts and know-how transfer expertise. Ready to serve you from our home base, in your office, and in the field.

GAF is a key contributor in the Copernicus programme

GAF is one of the most experienced European service providers in the EU/ESA Copernicus Programme and covers all the thematic areas: Land, Marine, Atmosphere, Emergency Management and Security. GAF’s direct involvement with Copernicus, formerly GMES, started as early as 1998, when  GAF contributed to GMES related R&D and then to GMES pre-operational services.  Today, in the operational Copernicus setting, GAF is a major player – as a leader as well as a partner in the European service teams – and has a strong competence in Land Monitoring and Emergency Management. This is reflected by the fact that 60 staff members are currently dedicated to Copernicus services provision, including operation of a 24/7 emergency service. GAF’s former affiliate EUROMAP – now merged with GAF – has for many years provided data services centred around the fleet of Indian EO systems and is as such involved in the Copernicus Space Component Data Access.

Earth Observation and Geoinformation in Technical Assistance and Consulting

Since its set-up in 1985 GAF has been taking Earth Observation- and Geo-information- based solutions beyond Europe and to the developing world - with a particular focus on projects in Africa and Asia funded by international donor organisations such as the World Bank, European Union, IADB and ADB. Developing nations have specific demands, which often include base mapping and monitoring of resources in vast and remote areas, and an important aspect is also the provision of capacity building and know-how transfer. In response, GAF has combined EO and GI into comprehensive solution packages consisting of in-depth application know-how, business process redesign, information technology, training and institutional strengthening. Today, the GAF track record comprises projects in more than 100 countries spread over 4 continents, and roughly one quarter of GAF’s revenues are generated in the so-called Technical Assistance and Consulting sector.

Emergency Mapping: damage map example from Nepal earthquake (Kathmandu). © European Commission, Copernicus Emergency Management Service

Riparian Zone products in Danube valley: VHR LC/LU (left), Riparian Zone delineation (right). © EEA

Capacity building and training form an important part of our work in the technical assistance sector (example: Support to the Darfur Land commission)

Contact information
GAF AG
Arnulfstrasse 199, D-80634 Muenchen, Germany
+49/89/121528-0. info@gaf.de
www.gaf.de

This fall, birds migrating south from the Arctic will find 7,000 acres of new, temporary wetland habitat for their stopovers in California. The wetlands – rice fields shallowly flooded for a couple weeks after the harvest – are courtesy of a project that combines citizen science, conservation groups and imagery from Landsat satellites, a joint NASA and U.S.

The BirdReturns program, created by The Nature Conservancy, is an effort to provide “pop-up habitats” for some of the millions of shorebirds, such as sandpipers and plovers, that migrate each year from their summer breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada to their winter habitats in California, Mexico, Central and South America. The route takes the birds along what’s called the Pacific Flyway, where they seek out the increasingly rare wetlands teeming with tasty insects to fuel their long-distance flights.

The problem – more than 90 percent of the natural wetlands in the Central Valley of California have been lost to development, agriculture and other land use changes, said Mark Reynolds, lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy California Migratory Bird Program. The organization operates the BirdReturns program, with partners including Point Blue Conservation Science, Audubon California and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

“The challenge is how do you help wildlife that move around and create habitat in places that may only be important for a few weeks or a few months out of the year?” Reynolds said. “We’d long been searching for spatial data that could help us.”

Pop-up habitat

The solution involves big data, binoculars and rice paddies. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program collects on-the-ground observations, including species and date spotted, from bird watchers nationwide. With a recent NASA grant to Cornell, scientists created computer models to analyze that information and combine it with satellite remote sensing imagery from Landsat and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. With these models, they could identify areas in the Central Valley where birds flocked to during the spring and fall migrations, as well as estimate the number of birds making the journey.

“The challenge then was to better understand the status of the habitat, where the models were predicting we should have birds,” Reynolds said. Some of his colleagues had been using Landsat images to look at where – and when – there was standing water, to assist with surveys of shorebirds.

Matthew Reiter, a quantitative ecologist with the conservation science nonprofit Point Blue, based in Petaluma, California, worked on developing models that can classify habitats based on Landsat imagery. For the BirdReturns project, the team analyzed 1,500 Landsat scenes between 2000 and 2011, and then additional images from Landsat 8 after its 2013 launch. For each area not blocked by clouds, they classified whether there was surface water.

“We can show patterns of how there’s changing habitat availability through the year, and that the timing may vary year to year,” Reiter said.

Matching the location and timing of surface water from Landsat with the route and timing of migrating shorebirds from eBird, the BirdReturns program looks for those key sites where extra water would make a difference for the birds, which forage for food in the wetland areas.

That’s where farmers come in. Rice farmers in California’s Central Valley flood their fields post-harvest, to soften the stubble and make it easier to clear for the next year. Using a reverse-auction, the farmers submit bids to The Nature Conservancy, stating how much money per acre it would take for them to shallowly flood their fields for a few weeks to create these pop-up wetland habitats. The BirdReturns team examines the bids, compares them to the priority habitats, and then makes selections, paying farmers to flood fields for specific two-week periods.

This fall, 30 farmers applied water on approximately 7,000 acres of rice fields. It’s the fourth round of auctions; about 30,000 acres of cumulative habitat was created earlier through auctions in Spring 2014, Fall 2014 and Spring 2015. In Spring 2014, the group surveyed the participating fields, as well as control fields where the water wasn’t left on. They found that more than 180,000 birds of over 50 different species used the 10,000 acres of pop-up wetlands – 30 times more than counted on the dry fields.

“It’s been a pretty astonishing success,” Reynolds said. “Farmers participated, and we were able to put habitat out there at a fraction of the cost to purchase that land or put an easement on it.”

Mapping water

With an ongoing drought in California, which is drying up some of the state’s wildlife refuges, it’s even more valuable to have a program like this, he said. If farmers have the water to create the habitat, it could compensate for dry areas elsewhere along the route.

With Landsat’s free archive of decades of land cover information, the mission has often been used for habitat and biodiversity studies, said Jeff Masek, project scientist for the upcoming Landsat 9 mission. With the currently in orbit Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 capturing more images per day than previous satellites, scientists have more information to draw on to study the timing of the ephemeral lakes, rivers and wetlands that only appear certain times of year.

“There’s been more and more work with the water mapping,” Masek said. “You can start to do much more detailed studies of the seasonality of water – when these lakes fill in, and when they dry up.”

The freely available satellite imagery from Landsat, and other satellite instruments such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, are invaluable data resources to see how birds and other animals are affected by landscape changes, Reiter said.

“With applied conservation programs, we’re using that imagery to say here are the areas that we can prioritize for conservation management, and here are areas that maybe we can let go,” he said. “It’s a very powerful tool for getting conservation to happen.”

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The United Nations defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Previous dialogues on sustainability have more or less focused on climate change and environmental issues, but the new paradigm of sustainability, as negotiated over the last three years for this summit. includes all efforts towards an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and the planet. There is a significant departure from the previous framework to now include a “harmonising” of three elements: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. “Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development,” the UN has said.

What are the Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted today?

The 193 Member States of the United Nations, following negotiations that lasted from July 2012 till last month, have agreed upon the text of a new document entitled, “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. This agenda contains 17 goals and 169 targets. These will be officially adopted on Friday at the start of the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York. The goals are to be achieved by all member countries within the next fifteen years, thereby giving it the moniker of ‘Agenda for 2030’.

But what are the goals exactly?

End poverty in all forms; end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture; ensure inclusive and equitable quality education; achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all; promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment; build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation; reduce inequality within and among countries; make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable; ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns; take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources; protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss; promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

Why now?

This agenda builds on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were adopted in 2000 and were to be achieved by 2015. With 2015 drawing to a close, it’s time for a new set of goals. Also, at the Rio+20 meet in 2012 to mark 20 years of the Rio Environment Summit, world leaders had to concede that decades of environmental activism had not achieved the set targets, leading to a consensus that a new sustainability document was in order for the world to commit itself to. From the Rio+20 conference emerged a report, ‘The Future We Want’, in which were enshrined the principles and markers based on which the negotiations proceeded for the next three years.

Do we need another set of global goals?

The document is being seen as a political document, not a technical one. Criticism that there are too many — 17 goals with 169 targets makes it a complex task to monitor, ensure reporting and hold governments accountable, but the Rio+20 consensus was for a comprehensive document, and this is comprehensive. But while the jury remains out on whether these are achievable and realistic, whether the lack of clarity on monitoring and accountability makes it an exercise in spelling out truisms and platitudes, the fact that this is a political undertaking is important. As undertakings that civil society and citizens can hold leaders accountable for, the goals are significant. Also, given that this is the first time that ALL nations adopt the same set of goals, regardless of their relative position on the development continuum, given that emerging economies in the developing world will play significant roles as donors in their own right even as the developing world negotiates with the developed world to keep its commitments on Official Development Assistance and other forms of financial structural reform, the goals are more than just 17 desirables.

Who foots the bill for the implementation of the agenda?

The fine print on how developed countries are to contribute vis-a-vis developing countries is still being finalised, though the Indian contingent of negotiators is among those G77 countries and China who insisted upon a Means of Implementation section in the document, the latter squarely laying responsibilities upon the developed world to fulfil its commitments on assistance and on transfer of technology to developing countries. For the first time, the role of the private sector and its participation is also being chalked in from the very start of the process. According to UN officials, a “framework of a revitalized global partnership for sustainable development” including the policies and actions arrived at in the Addis Ababa Conference on Financing for Development held in July this year will define the precise nature of resource mobilisation for implementing the goals.

How enthusiastic is civil society, given that it has been part of the consultative provcess of drafting the SDGs?

Indian NGOs say they harbour a healthy skepticism of the goals themselves being achieved, especially in the absence of clearly defined monitoring processes and clarity on resource mobilisation — these are still being negotiated. But their participation as stakeholders means that they continue to engage with the process.

If it’s adopted today, what next?

The 17 SDGs and 169 targets of the new agenda will be monitored and reviewed using a set of global indicators. This framework of indicators is still to be developed and is currently being reviewed by an Inter Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators. The UN Statistical Commission will finalise these markers or indicators, which will naturally demand capacity-building on data collection in countries, by March 2016. Subsequently, the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly will adopt these indicators. Chief statisticians from Member States are working on the identification of the targets with the aim to have 2 indicators for each target. Governments will also develop their own national indicators to assist in monitoring progress made on the goals and targets. The follow–up and review process will be undertaken on an annual basis by the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development through a SDG Progress Report to be prepared by the Secretary–General.

See more at

30 years of GAF: A long and successful history – the solid basis for an inspiring future
Customer orientation and excellence have been the driving forces behind the companys’ development towards a major European player in the Earth Observation field. The broad service portfolio has helped to establish a constant growth and made the company to perform excellently compared to many competitors – and also within the Telespazio Grouping. An outstanding positioning has been achieved in the Copernicus land service suite, in the demanding military and security markets, and the natural resource management consultancy field. It’s the volume of good ingredients and clients’ appreciation, that makes GAF bound for the future.


EARSC Company of the Year 2015

Last year was EARSC’s 25th anniversary when we intoduced the EARSC Company Award. This is the second year and the second winner of this now prestigious award is GAF AG. GAF is one of the longest-lived companies in the sector and this achievement was recognised by EARSC members in delivering the award to them this year.

This is for the company recognised by both peers and international experts as having made the most significant contribution to the growth of the EO services sector in Europe. Both EARSC members and the international jury selected GAF AG as the winner, please tell us what this means for you and how the important the prize is for GAF?

What we call the Earth Observation downstream or probably a bit more precise, the Geoinformation service industry was and still is partly characterized by a number of companies or semi-public institutions which have the one great business idea on which to grow a very ambitious development plan. Often such enterprises are hailed for innovation, making a lot of marketing noise and finally after some years disappear or re-arrange their profile completely.

This is not the story of GAF. We try to deliver something sustainable – though we do not forget about the advances in technology. My staff and myself believe it is remarkable that we have been selected after 30 years of existence – in an environment where the new buzzwords (Cloud Computing, Big Data, EO Smallsats) would naturally attract much more attention: we are very proud to be now one of the “officially” recognised European leaders in the EO service domain.

GAF AG

Tell us a bit about the history of GAF AG, how the Company was started and how it has grown over the years?

It was October 1985, that Rupert Haydn, with the support of an international development consultancy firm and the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund, founded the company with an initial staff of 5 – the only “operational” satellite instrument at that time was the Landsat Thematic Mapper with unbelievable 30 m resolution! It was soon obvious that even with the advent of the SPOT system featuring 10 m and then many others, growth had to be generated also by other “neighbouring” technological enablers plus a number of well-educated application experts. In 1996 the subsidiary Euromap was founded in order to secure exclusive access to Indian satellite data, which is now an integral part of the company following an upstream merger of Euromap into GAF in 2014. In 2003 the majority of company shares was taken over by Telespazio and today the company is a one of the most successfully operating entities within the Telespazio Group. The staff has grown from 5 to 220, and so have the revenues accompanied by solid profitability.

Please tell us a bit more about what GAF AG does? What are the key markets that GAF AG addresses?

It’s the marriage of technical excellence with a profound application/market knowledge that is special to GAF staff – for this reason we do have not a typical “Sales” or “Business Development” structure, we rather mobilise a technical expert with sales and project management experience. The person selling a solution or project is normally the one implementing it and making the customer service. Our services are all spatial data production and analyses, starting from a variety of satellite data reception and distribution (not only our Indian sensor flute), mapping and monitoring, GIS and spatial software systems down to consultancy services how to best use these services for better decision making or an improved administrative purpose. And we cover in similar intensity fields like agriculture, forestry, mining, oil&gas, infrastructure, environment and climate change topics. An important activity – of course – for GAF are the defense and security markets, where we believe to have the most complete one-stop-shop in Europe. Instead of talking too much about beacon activities I may refer you to our news section on our website.

What is beyond GAF’s expertise, can often be addressed by using our Group resources or long-lasting partners in the research or industry arena.

When the company started in business, what specific idea, purpose or vision was the driving force?

It was the convergence of several ideas:

1) the concept of using satellite data for resource management in remote areas much more effectively than by traditional field surveys only,
2) the utilization of digital image processing techniques to extract subtle reflectance features from CIR airphotos, and
3) to earn money by letting the staff develop their own project areas.

What has been the greatest challenge the company has encountered and how was it overcome?

There have been many, but this one comes just to my mind: GAF is a bit exotic with its massive out-of-Europe experience, mainly in the developing world. One of these larger projects has been a 4 years capacity building project for the Ministry of Mines and Energy in Kabul. As one can imagine it was not easy to find highly specialized experts to stay for years in an unstable environment. It took us massive manpower research, 2 missions to KBL and a 6 months internal planning and decision-making process to finally negotiate a workable contract. The solution has been a senior key expert from Zimbabwe, when asked if he would have a problem to work a long time in Kabul, he responded: “If you have lived a long period in Southern Africa you would not ask this question…”

What do you consider are the most important competences of GAF that help you succeed?

In short: Put staff in positions where they perform best, high flexibility thru our multi-role system, a family-type environment and last not least putting the customer first. Though we belong to a big industrial grouping, many EO service works are tailor-made for SME structures. Too much strategizing destroys sometimes the chances to be successful in a highly competitive environment.

What do you see as the main challenges facing GAF-AG in the next 1-2 years?

In our opinion, the market outlook for the EO service industry has never been so inspiring as it is now. Coming from the spatial resolution “revolution” now down to 30 cm, we think the next step is the repetition dimension with large constellations of micro/small sats. It is up to us to design and implement completely new information services. A lot of noise is currently made about highly automated analysis platforms, yes, we believe here are a lot of advances possible. However, it is our experience of more than 1000 projects successfully completed, to really sell a safe service to a customer the human interaction is and will be still an important factor.

Market Views

The three disruptive satellite startups: Planet Labs, Urthecast and Skybox Imaging, continue to make headlines following the recent move by Planet Labs to acquire German-based Blackbridge geospatial companies, including its RapidEye suite of core offerings. In June, Urthecast agreed to pay €74.2 million for Spain-based Elecnor SA’s Deimos Imaging unit, which operates Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 satellites. Exactly a year before that, Skybox Imaging was bought by Google for €450 million in cash.

How do you think that these deals will affect your business? what do you think mean they mean for European companies?

We do have too few details on these deals and the rationale behind – it might be sometimes more simple than we think initially. One thing is the deal, another the business concepts driving such acquisitions. It appears on the surface that again the US industry somehow is starting to buy into successful European firms and developments. I am sure the background is more complex and players from other nations are playing their role in some of the deals.

In our view the key will be not the novel systems per se but rather the know-how around novel information services generated.

Are there lessons for GAF or other European companies to be drawn from them?

There are so many other initiatives and there are since long plans from the public side, we need to use everything available in form of a multi-mission platform to base our service offering. The Client needs a reliable and affordable information service and normally does not care about the technicalities, systems used or if they are derived even only from traditional in-situ data.

What are the main issues you consider may affect the evolution of the market you are addressing and where do you see the greatest opportunities for growth?

From the Copernicus program we will have not only direct service contracts for the industry, but on a medium-long term we will see a plethora of new public/commercial applications based on existing service lines. It has its dja vu: the COFOR (cost for reproduction) distribution era of Landsat data 20 years ago with the result of a strong increase in EO data utilization. Thanks to hard work GAF is today in a prominent position to assist in value creation from the Copernicus opportunity.

For the aspects outside Copernicus, I have to repeat a bit: the temporal resolution by maintaining a high-very high spatial resolution. If we add to the end of the decade also the hyperspectral dimension and the unique features of SAR-monitoring, all coupled with automated data screening/change detection algorithms, we will see a completely new market scenario. GAF is heavily preparing for this, and we collaborate intensely here with e-Geos (SAR) and the most important optical system operators such as Antrix, Airbus Defense, Blackbridge, Digitalglobe/EUSI.

Are there particular threats which you see for your business?

Appropriate procurement procedures are still in the minority in many tenderig processes. Some public and commercial clients believe EO services can be procured like washing powder or cars. Typical is a low entry barrier in technical merits, and after that only price counts, sometimes even adorned by liquidated damages. This is totally inadequate for complex servicing contracts where experience, know-how, a sound technical workflow and a good project management is required.

This type of cheapy-procurement could even destroy the EO service market in a longer term!

At the moment, innovation seems to be on everyone’s list of things to promote, what is your perception of innovation in the EO services sector? How do you approach innovation within GAF AG?

Means for us to look for new ways to improve the quality of our services and make them more efficient – and to bring completely new products and services to the market. All this under very practical aspects. We believe the best innovator is a staff member who knows the customer, the technologies, the process, the economics and his own and the colleagues’ capabilities. We have a large number of such people in the company and try to give them enough freedom to innovate in their daily work or participate in cross-Group innovation actions. It is key for us to leverage on our staff for continuous improvement. Besides in-house innovation we are very happy to have intensified development actions with the DLR Earth Observation Centre located next doors in the past years – a perfect example for a fruitful industry/R&D-centre co-operation.

EO Service Development and Stakeholders

In the EO services sector, governments can have a strong influence over the way business develops. Aside from being a good customer, what’s the one other thing governments can do to support the development of the sector?

It is small, incomplete list that comes to my mind:

1) Apply the correct procurement method, put more emphasis on quality and sustainability
2) Provide separate budgets lines or at least some moneys for pilots
3) Exclude non-industrial players from bidding to avoid unfair competition

EARSC is the European trade association dealing with the geospatial services sector; what for you are the main benefits of EARSC membership?

For GAF, EARSC is the most important membership in a professional association. It is the European industry platform that does not hesitate to clearly express an industry view towards EO service customers, financers, politicians and non-industrial EO players. And real practical advances come from the service industry! EARSC’s record of activities is impressing, for instance to promote qualification schemes in a small and heterogenous market where a customer can be sometimes not sure what he gets for his investment, or as an another example, its arguments for more industry participation in the Copernicus atmosphere and climate change service lines.

What do consider is the main issue for EARSC to address today on behalf of the European EO services sector?

I think EARSC should elaborate with the big public customers an advisory scheme on how to choose a specific procurement method based on EU law. This would help all company members, the client side, and most important, the European taxpayer, to receive a lasting and real value for money.

Future

Finally, what can you say about your outlook for the sector and how companies in this sector should be positioning themselves?

Regarding EO there is a great future ahead and GAF as one of the largest service companies in Europe is just one example of what can be achieved. Our premier European raw material is brainware, a constant improvement and solid performance. Though I became 60 this year, I am looking forward extremely interested and I would be pleased to see a really wide commercial market being established by the aid of the dramatic technological developments ahead.

Peter Volk, CEO GAF AG

Dr. Peter VOLK has graduated in applied geology at the Faculty of Geosciences (Chair Prof. Bodechtel) in Alpine sedimentology, tectonics and remote sensing in 1982. Working on a research project lead by Prof. Bodechtels’ Deputy Dr. Rupert Haydn using Earth observation, Geophysics and GIS for mineral exploration in Southern Spain, he received his PhD from Munich University in 1985. During and after his thesis he was active as geotechnical engineer in a local firm before joining (again) Rupert Haydn in the freshly founded GAF in 1986 as expert for image processing and EO land applications. During his long history at GAF he developed and managed many research and application projects ranging from geology, water, agriculture, environment, regional planning and cadastre in more than 30 countries with a focus on Africa and the Arab world. In 1991 he became Head of department and proxyholder, in 1993 member of GAF management board, in 2004 he was promoted COO of the company and followed Dr. Rupert Haydn as CEO in 2007. He further acts since 5 years also as country manager for the Telespazio Group in Germany with more than 650 staff working in the two companies Telespazio-VEGA Germany and GAF.

July 2015
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
July 13, 2015 July 14, 2015 Lisbon Portugal
July 13, 2015 July 15, 2015 Geneva Switzerland
July 13, 2015 July 15, 2015 Liverpool United Kingdom
July 13, 2015 July 15, 2015 Geneva Switzerland
July 20, 2015 July 24, 2015 Noordwijk Netherlands
July 22, 2015 July 24, 2015 Annecy France
July 23, 2015 July 24, 2015 Pavia Italy
July 24, 2015 Augsburg Germany
July 24, 2015 Wien Austria
July 25, 2015 July 26, 2015 Wuhan China
July 26, 2015 July 31, 2015 Milan Italy
July 30, 2015

The RASOR Consortium will host a one-day SME Workshop, together with EARSC and IGARSS. The purpose of the workshop is to develop partnerships in the development and application of the RASOR platform. Contact maite.garcia(at)altamira-information.com in cc. secretariat(at)earsc.org

Milan Italy
August 2015
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
August 16, 2015 August 17, 2015 GeoBIM Middle East Summit Dubai, UAE
August 28, 2015 September 6, 2015 Oslo Norway
September 2015
Start Date End Date Name Locality Country
September 1, 2015 September 4, 2015 Cape Town South Africa
September 4, 2015 September 11, 2015 Brest France
September 5, 2015 September 9, 2015 Bordeaux France
September 7, 2015 September 8, 2015 Brussels Belgium
September 7, 2015 September 10, 2015 Graz Austria
September 7, 2015 September 9, 2015 Copenhagen Denmark
September 9, 2015 September 11, 2015 Amsterdam Netherlands
September 11, 2015

Save the date Copernicus Users Information Day

Darmstadt Germany
September 14, 2015 September 21, 2015 Frascati Italy
September 14, 2015 September 16, 2015 Dresden Germany
September 14, 2015 September 18, 2015 Bucharest Romania
September 15, 2015 September 17, 2015 Stuttgart Germany
September 15, 2015 September 16, 2015 Krakow Poland
September 15, 2015 September 17, 2015 Frascati Italy
September 17, 2015 September 18, 2015 Paris France
September 17, 2015 September 22, 2015 Sendai China
September 18, 2015 September 19, 2015 Hamburg Germany
September 21, 2015 September 22, 2015 Paris France
September 21, 2015 September 24, 2015 Toulouse France
September 24, 2015 Frascati Italy
September 28, 2015 September 29, 2015 Warsaw Poland
September 28, 2015 October 2, 2015 La Grande Motte France
September 29, 2015 September 30, 2015 Reno USA
September 29, 2015 October 1, 2015 Noordwijk Netherlands

Mme Wu Shuang, CEO & President of 21AT, said: “I am very glad that the three satellites are in orbit and have started communication with the ground station. It is the first step of our long march and we are looking forward to the commencement of our BJII data services following the completion of the commissioning of the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation.”

The Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Company Ltd (21AT), a commercial Earth observation satellite operator based in Beijing, has bought the imaging capacity of three DMC3/TripleSat satellites that were designed and manufactured by SSTL.

The very high-resolution imager on board the satellites will provide 1 metre ground sampling distance (GSD) in panchromatic mode, and 4 metre GSD in multispectral mode, with a swath width of 23.4km.

The three satellites will be phased 120 degrees apart around the same orbit using their on board propulsion systems within three months after the launch; thus with off-pointing capability, the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation will be able to target anywhere on Earth once per day. In addition, the wide swath width of the satellites provides the best combination of spatial resolution and time resolution – aiming at stimulating operational monitoring applications, such as urban planning and intelligent management, based on changes detected by timely and regular cloud-free, very high-resolution imagery.

About 21AT

Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Co. Ltd. is the first and only EO commercial satellite operator in China. Its headquarters is in Beijing, employs more than 300 employees and has been providing remote sensing applications in China since the launch of its first satellite – Beijing-1 in 2005. Beijing-1 is one of five satellites in DMC that had provided international disaster response through International Charter and Beijing-1 satellite imagery to international customers.

Based on Beijing-1 success, 21AT has acquired the new capability of three 1m satellites in a constellation for BJII service. In orbit commission is expected to be completed three months after the launch. 21AT will start the operational worldwide satellite data services from the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation following the completion of the commission. 21AT will create new applications for customers and business opportunities for worldwide partners through its operational monitoring services powered by DMC3/TripleSat Constellation.

About SSTL

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) is the world’s leading small satellite company, delivering operational space missions for a range of applications including Earth observation, science and communications. The Company designs, manufactures and operates high performance satellites and ground systems for a fraction of the price normally associated with space missions, with over 500 staff working on turnkey satellite platforms, space-proven satellite subsystems and optical instruments.

Since 1981, SSTL has built and launched 47 satellites – as well as providing training and development programmes, consultancy services, and mission studies for ESA, NASA , international governments and commercial customers, with an innovative approach that is changing the economics of space. Headquartered in Guildford, UK, SSTL is part of the Airbus Group.
www.sstl.co.uk

India haslaunched five UK satellites, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said Friday. The launch took place at 9:58 p.m. local time (16:28 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The rocket reached orbit 20 minutes after launch.


“The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its thirtieth flight (PSLV-C28), launched three identical DMC3 optical earth observation satellites built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), United Kingdom (UK). The PSLV-C28, in addition to the three DMC3 satellites, also carried two auxiliary satellites from UK,” ISRO said on their website.

The Indian PSLV-C28 rocket in its high-tech XL configuration was launched into a 647 km [402 miles] Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) with three identical DMC3 Earth observation satellites, each of which weighs 447 kg (985 lb).

Apart from the satellites, the rocket also carries an 91-kg (200 lb) optical Earth Observation technology-demonstration micro satellite CBNT-1 and a 7-kg (15lb) experimental nano satellite De-orbitSail, developed by the UK University of Surrey Space Center.

Sino-UK remote sensing satellite constellation launched
Beijing, July 11 (Xinhua) — Three one-meter resolution optical Earth observation satellites were successfully launched early Saturday, according to operator Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Company Ltd. (21AT).

The satellites, which will form the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation, were launched from a site in India and were part of a Sino-UK cooperation project.

The satellites were developed by UK-headquartered Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL), which is the world’s leading small satellite company and part of the Airbus Group.

21AT, a commercial Earth observation satellite operator based in Beijing, provided the imaging capacity of the three satellites and dubbed the Constellation “Beijing-2.”

The Chinese company will manage the satellites’ operation, including observation and control, and data reception and production, as well as related services.

The cooperative contract for the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation was signed in London in 2011 and witnessed by the UK prime minister and Chinese premier.

According to SSTL, the satellites provide the best combination of spatial resolution and time resolution — which stimulates monitoring applications, such as urban planning and intelligent management, at a very high resolution.

Wang Zhiyong, 21AT deputy general manager, said Beijing-2 was a state-approved program and was part of national civilian-use space infrastructure.

China has encouraged private investment to support the launch and operation of remote sensing satellites, and ground application systems for satellite navigation.

Industry observers heralded “Beijing-2” as an important milestone in the involvement of the private sector and the commercialization and international cooperation in the industry.

Source

The summer has arrived in Europe and everyone is taking off for their summer holidays. Before they leave EARSC has its annual general assembly which was quite a busy event this year. Last year was our 25th anniversary and we held a party on the evening before which proved so popular that we repeated it this year and which now feels like an annual event! Amazing how fast traditions can take hold. It was enjoyed by all and we were delighted to welcome Mme Iskra Mihaylova as our distinguished guest. Mme Mihaylova is a MEP from Bulgaria and Chair of the Regional Committee (REGIO) in the Parliament. Given the importance of regions in the Copernicus programme we shall certainly be seeking her opinion on future activities.

Another tradition after 2 years (!) is the EARSC Company of the year award. Also introduced as a part of our 25th anniversary celebrations, and presented on the occasion of the pre-agm cocktail, it seems to have caught the imagination of companies and Geoville, the first winners were sufficiently pleased last year to sponsor our event this year! The second winner of this now prestigious award is GAF. GAF is one of the longest-lived companies in the sector and this achievement was recognised by EARSC members in delivering the award to them this year. Congratulations to GAF.

Then we took the opportunity of the AGM to launch our certification scheme. This has been under trial last year with 4 companies testing the scheme documents either with their existing auditors or, in the case of companies not having a certification in place, with our own expert Peter Hollidge. Peter is masterminding the scheme which is now operational and open for companies to use. Further details can be found on our web-site

The scheme allows companies to achieve management certification to defined requirements without necessarily the need for full ISO9001 compliance. We offer it to help companies provide confidence to their customers and to ease their procurement process. It is suitable for all sizes of companies. We are also now looking to extend the scheme to cover product certification and we shall report on that early next year.

After the AGM we held a workshop focused on Copernicus Services. We were very pleased to welcome representatives from each of the 7 European Entrusted Entities (EEE’s) which are the organisations entrusted by the EC with the delegated authority to procure and supply the Copernicus Services. We consider that if the full benefits of investments in Copernicus are to be realised, it is essential to bring the EEE’s together with industry and to develop a much closer understanding on how to work together. The workshop was considered a great success as a first step in this process which will continue over the next few months. Our first goal is to generate a roadmap to ensure progressive industry involvement and increasing possibilities for commercial exploitation

As if all that was not enough (we held an AGM as well!), we also had a workshop to look at the first results coming from our 2015 industry survey. The survey took place from January to April and the results are just being analysed. The workshop provided a first opportunity to share some of the findings and to gather ideas on how to make the process easier and even more effective in the future. The results will be published in September and I shall no doubt write about them in the Autumn eomag.

So, happy holidays for all those reading this who have not yet left. I shall be busy wading through figures on industry statistics as well as wading through the sea (hopefully). I wish everyone a good summer break and to more success in the coming months.

Oh, and one last thing, we published an annual report for the very first time this year. You can read about our activities over the last few months and understand what the Association is doing! Please download a copy from our web-site and if you are interested in what we are doing, do not hesitate to contact us and even consider joining the Association

by Geoff Sawyer

An agreement between the British Geological Survey (BGS) and aerial mapping company Bluesky is allowing for a range of geological and geohazard map layers to be made available online at www.blueskymapshop.com.

The eight new layers cover a variety of physical features and hazards, including a nationwide map of groundwater flooding as well as ground stability data, geological indicators of flooding and permeability data. Widely used by developers, planners and environmental consultants, for example, this new data complements the national datasets already on offer, including high resolution aerial photography, detailed height models and Ordnance Survey mapping.

Five new map products relating to groundwater are also available at www.blueskymapshop.com. These include the first national hazard dataset for groundwater flooding. Based on geological and hydrogeological information, the 1:50,000 scale digital data can be used to identify areas where geological conditions could enable groundwater flooding to occur, and where groundwater may come close to the ground surface. The Geological Indicators of Flooding shows areas vulnerable to both inland and coastal flooding identified from the geological deposits present. Also available is an Aquifer Designation Map identifying different types of aquifers across England and Wales, and reflecting the importance of aquifers in terms of groundwater as a resource, an Infiltration SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) map, Permeability Data and the WellMaster Hydrogeological Database.

The Geological map layers from BGS that are now available through the Bluesky Mapshop include both the 1:10,000 scale and 1:50, scale DigMapGB digital geological maps of Great Britain. These cover five standard themes: Artifical Ground, Bedrock Geology, Linear Features, Mass Movement Deposits and Superficial Deposits, as well as a composition type. Applications of this data ranges from detailed site assessment through to nationwide studies, dependent on scale.

Internet: www.bluesky-world.com