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The Fengyun-II 08 satellite, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province, will be used to collect meteorological and environmental information. The data will be used for weather forecasting and climate monitoring, Xinhua reported.

The satellite and the Long March 3A rocket, which delivered the satellite to near-earth orbit, were constructed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, according to news agency.

The country’s previous weather satellite, Fengyun-II 07, was launched in January 2012 and is still in orbit.

China has recently boosted its development of space technologies. In November, the country’s Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation announced that it was planning to launch about 120 applied satellites in preparation for a national space infrastructure in the future that will include 70 satellites for environmental monitoring, 20 communication satellites and 30 navigation satellites.

China plans to start operating its own space station in 2020, according to the China National Space Administration.

Source: Sputnik News

[Via Satellite 12-29-2014] The Japan Meteorological Agency has released the first images from the Himawari 8 geostationary weather satellite, which launched Oct. 7, 2014 aboard an H2A rocket.

Mitsubishi Electric built the satellite using the DS2000 platform.

The Himawari 8 spacecraft is slated for operation by mid-2015. Between then, the satellite will undergo testing and checking of in-orbit systems and ground facilities.

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[Via Satellite 12-29-2014] China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reports the Yaogan 26 remote sensing satellite entered space after launching aboard a Long March 4B rocket on Dec. 26.

The launch, which was the 202nd for the Long March rocket family, occurred from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi Province.

According to Xinhua, the satellite’s primary functions are land surveys, agriculture, scientific experiments and disaster prevention. China launched Yaogan 1, the first Yaogan satellite, in 2006.

The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite “IBUKI”, developed jointly by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is the world’s only satellite designed specifically to monitor greenhouse gases from space.

The satellite has continued to fulfill its main mission in monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane concentrations from space to improve the accuracy of sink/source estimates, and achieve its target to contribute to precision refinement for the ongoing elucidation of carbon cycles, since its launch on January 23, 2009.

CO2 concentrations in mega-cities and their surroundings were analyzed for the three and half years from June 2009 to December 2012, based on the observational data acquired by “IBUKI”, indicating the tendency for higher CO2 concentrations in mega-cities than those in their surroundings. Furthermore, positive correlations were shown between differences in CO2 concentrations and the concentrations estimated from data for fossil fuel consumption. These results indicate that “IBUKI” observations have the potential to enable us to detect enhanced CO2 concentrations with their origin in fossil fuel consumption for mega-cities. These studies demonstrate the potential utility of satellite observation of CO2 concentrations as a tool for monitoring greenhouse gas emissions (inventory) from fossil fuels.

With the progress in studies to monitor large point CO2 sources by satellite observation and other methods, these results will be applied to current and forthcoming research projects involving “IBUKI” and its successor – GOSAT-2 – to be launched in 2018.

IBUKI” (GOSAT) Satellite’s Historically Unprecedented Observation of Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions of Mega-City Regions from Space”:http://www.gosat.nies.go.jp/eng/result/download/GOSAT_L4CO2_20141209_en.pdf

[Via Satellite 12-29-2014] Satellogic, a startup company founded in Palo Alto, California with offices around the world, has finalized plans for its first wave of satellites to begin launching in the second half of 2015.


“We are gearing up to launch the first service constellation of 16 satellites next year,” Emiliano Kargieman, Satellogic founder and CEO told Via Satellite. “We are also gearing up to launch the first satellites of the new generation in the second half of 2015.”

Satellogic’s goal is to provide real-time imaging of the entire planet on a daily basis. Kargieman envisions accomplishing this goal through a constellation that could scale up to as many as 300 small satellites in the future. He said the launches will likely take place with multiple launch providers to distribute the risk associated with any failure. The Earth observation startup Planet Labs has a similar approach, having distributed its “Dove” spacecraft aboard diverse launch vehicles. The company was able to bounce back quickly from the loss of 26 satellites during the Oct. 28 Antares rocket failure, quickly building and manifesting two satellites for the SpaceX-5 mission in less than two weeks.

Kargieman said Satellogic’s initial constellation of 16 would begin with one satellite, followed by launches in series of five satellites at a time.

In June, Satellogic launched a third prototype satellite, known as BugSat 1, aboard a Kosmotras Dnepr rocket. Kargieman said the main focus has been on using this satellite in orbit to test components in a more visceral environment than just simulators. BugSat 1 is closer to the model that will launch than its predecessors, CubeBug 1 and CubeBug 2, allowing the company to more readily integrate learnings into the development process on the ground. While Satellogic continues to receive data and follow telemetry from CubeBug 1 and 2, the latest spacecraft has had the most influence on the design that will become the service constellation.

“Mostly, the goal with this satellite was testing the imaging payloads and testing some of the onboard processing that we are doing. So, we’ve been iterating over the last few months on the main payload, on the processing and working on the algorithms that we will deploy next year,” he said.

A significant change was the decision to sharpen the resolution down to one-meter for multispectral imaging. Satellogic was previously planning to have sub-two meter resolution, but customer input led to an increase in image quality.

“I think one-meter is the magic number in satellite imaging where you start to see things that change on a day-to-day basis. That’s what we are aiming for now and based on the feedback that we are getting from customers, that’s the sweet spot where the applications start to make sense,” explained Kargieman, adding that Satellogic’s launch customers will begin using the service satellites late next year. “We still haven’t announced who they are, but we are starting to work with groups in agriculture, oil and gas and some government. Those would be initially some of our focus areas of application.”

Other changes include optimizing satellite assembly, calibration and operations. While operating a single-digit number of spacecraft at a time, Satellogic was able to handle more tasks by hand. With the larger constellation, more operations will be automated. For example, Satellogic plans to equip the service constellation with a mesh topology that enables each satellite to remain in constant communication with other members. This way each can send images to ground stations that would otherwise be out of reach when in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The company is also planning to boost its manufacturing capabilities in the near future.

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New players have started to foray into the market through partnerships with governments, which is attributed to the increased focus of governments worldwide to foster more innovations in space technologies. NASA partnered with the USGS to create Landsat, which holds the record for the longest coverage of the earth’s surface from space.

Reportstack has announced a new market research report on the Global Satellite-based Earth Observation Services Market by Government Users 2015-2019. The number of public-private partnerships has increased significantly. Governments are compelled to involve the Private sector players because of budgetary constraints, and several private companies have started to foray into the market, which has helped generate more capital for space programs and enhance the product development process. The overall market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.39 percent during the forecast period of 2015-2019.

“The adoption of nano-satellites has increased in recent times as these would be of high utility value for monitoring purposes,”.

“They provide the flexibility of low cost and high performance to end-users, which enables several launces in a short span of time to form a constellation.”

To define the market conditions in the next 3-4 years, the analysts have conducted in-depth analysis of the impact of market drivers, challenges and trends featuring data on product segmentations, vendor shares, growth rate by revenue and an evaluation of the different buying criteria in the order of importance.

To access full report with TOC, please visit Global Satellite-based Earth Obervation Services market by Government Users – 2015-2019

For more information

Reportstack

(Dec 2015) A new Russian satellite streaked into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket ending December, carrying high-resolution cameras to survey the globe and a plasma physics experiment to seek out signs of exotic antimatter and dark matter in the cosmos.

The Resurs P2 spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1855 GMT (1:55 p.m. EST), rocketing into the sky north from the storied spaceport into orbit over Earth’s poles.

The Soyuz 2-1b booster’s shed four strap-on rocket engines, a core stage engine and a bulbous nose fairing as planned. A third stage RD-0124 engine completed the Soyuz launch sequence before the rocket deployed the approximately seven-ton satellite less than 10 minutes after liftoff.

The Soyuz rocket successfully released the Resurs P2 spacecraft in the correct orbit, according to Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.

Designed for a five-year mission, the Resurs P2 satellite will collect imagery of Earth’s surface for distribution to Russian government agencies responsible for agriculture, the environment, emergency situations, fisheries, meteorology and cartography.

Urban planners, road and highway builders, land surveyors, and the oil and gas industry could use data from the Resurs P2 satellite, according to Russian officials.

Circling nearly 300 miles above Earth, the spacecraft carries narrow and wide field of view cameras for close-up snapshots with a top resolution of about 1 meter, or 3.3 feet, and wide-angle images scanning a larger swath of Earth in one pass.

Resurs P2 has a hyperspectral camera mode to survey the ground in 96 spectral bands, allowing image analysts to tease out details about vegetation and crop yields. The hyperspectral data can also help scientists determine the effects of insects on agricultural harvests, soil salinity, and microbial activity in large bodies of water.

The satellite can also take three-dimensional stereo images.

Resurs P2 was built by TsSKB Progress of Samara, Russia. The same storied space company is prime contractor for Russia’s legendary Soyuz rockets.

The civilian-operated spacecraft has similar performance to the U.S. and French-owned Earth imaging satellites, according to a TsSKB Progress press release.

Resurs P2’s payload — including a suite of multiple cameras, an astrophysics science instrument, and a communications package to track ships — makes the spacecraft like four satellites rolled into one, the craft’s maker said in a press release.

The Nucleon instrument developed by the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics at Moscow State University will detect high-energy cosmic rays to help scientists search for evidence of the existence of antimatter, dark matter and other strange forms of matter.

“In spite (of) its small mass and size, the Nucleon instrument will double the global statistics collected during the past 50 years,” said Dmitry Podorozhny, Nucleon’s principal investigator. “And it is referred to (as) breakthrough data. For the first time, we’ll study a wide energy range of cosmic rays as never before — by four orders — by means of a single method during a long, not less than five-year, orbital experiment.”

When the Resurs P2 satellite enters service early next year, it will double the imaging capacity of Russia’s premier civil Earth observing satellite system. A nearly identical spacecraft, named Resurs P1, launched in June 2013 to replace an aging older-generation Resurs satellite sent into space in 2006.

The extra imaging capacity provided by Resurs P2 will help the system’s users in the Russian government and international environmental agencies obtain more timely photos of regions of interest around the world.

Data from the Resurs satellites aid in disaster response, help authorities update maps, track pollution, track ice in maritime shipping lanes, and detect fields of illegal drugs, according to TsSKB Progress.

Russia plans to launch the third spacecraft in the new Resurs satellite series — Resurs P3 — in the fourth quarter of 2015, Roscosmos said.

Source

The Russian government said ending December it will provide public access to previously classified Earth-sensing data received from domestic and foreign satellites.


“The Earth-sensing data received from civilian domestic and foreign satellites are no longer considered state secrets and it will be open to public access in line with the Russian legislation,” the government said in a statement posted on its legal database portal.

The draft of the regulation was published earlier this year, in August.

At that time, the explanatory note to the document said the declassification of Earth-sensing satellite data would greatly expand the possibilities of its use in the interests OF Russian economy and business, as well as improve the quality of life for Russian citizens.

According to the note, it would also create growth prospects for the Russian geospatial intelligence services market.

Source Sputnik International

(15 December 2014) CryoSat has delivered this year’s map of autumn sea-ice thickness in the Arctic, revealing a small decrease in ice volume.

In a new phase for ESA’s ice mission, the measurements can now also be used to help vessels navigate through the north coastal waters of Alaska, for example.

Measurements made during October and November show that the volume of Arctic sea ice now stands at about 10 200 cubic km – a small drop compared to last year’s 10 900 cubic km.

The volume is the second-highest since measurements began in 2010, and the five-year average is relatively stable. This, however, does not necessarily indicate a turn in the long-term downward trend.

“We must to take care when computing long-term trends as this CryoSat assessment is short when compared to other climate records,” said Prof. Andrew Shepherd from University College London and the University of Leeds.

“For reliable predictions, we should try other approaches, like considering what is forcing the changes, incorporating the CryoSat data into predictive models based on solid physics, or simply waiting until more measurements have been collected.”

CryoSat was designed to measure sea-ice thickness across the entire Arctic Ocean, enabling scientists to monitor accurately the overall change in volume.

While the amount of ice normally fluctuates depending on the season, longer-term satellite records show a constant downward trend in ice extent during all seasons, in particular in summer, with a minimum occurring in the autumn of 2012.

Establishing whether the ice volume is following a similar trend is one of CryoSat’s key mission objectives.

A team of UK researchers at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling are presenting their findings this week at the American Geophysical Union’s autumn meeting in San Francisco, California.

“October is interesting because it is the first month we get data directly following the sea-ice minimum in September, so that’s where we see the largest interannual variability in our volume estimates,” said the Centre’s Rachel Tilling, who is working on the CryoSat measurements as part of her PhD studies.

Launched in 2010, CryoSat has long surpassed its planned three-year life. At the mission’s recent mid-term review, it was further extended until February 2017.

Tommaso Parrinello, ESA’s CryoSat Mission Manager, said, “CryoSat has already achieved outstanding results, both within its original mission objectives and for unexpected applications.

“Looking ahead, we are working hard to prototype new operational capabilities so that the measurements can be used for routine assessments in climate science and for services affected by Arctic sea ice.”

To test this, scientists have produced an assessment of sea-ice thickness north of Alaska and eastern Russia with data acquired over the last month. Products like this could prove useful for maritime services, such as shipping and exploration.

(source: ESA)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)‘s academic companion, the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed two free of charge mobile apps that bring the capacity to see and capture satellite information to mobile users’ fingertips. The apps received improvement support from NOAA and NASA.

The SatCam app for iOS devices permits mobile users to capture observations of sky and ground situations at the similar time that an Earth observing satellite is overhead. The WxSat (quick for Weather Satellite) app, for iOS and android, displays and animates full-resolution, genuine-time climate satellite data. WxSat leverages the SSEC Information Center holdings to provide worldwide coverage for visible, infrared, and water vapor channels.

How SatCam Operates

When users capture a SatCam observation and submit it to the SatCam server, it assists to verify the high-quality of the cloud merchandise that are produced from satellite information. In return for the observation submission, SatCam sends users the satellite image that was captured at their location. The SatCam software program supports NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites as nicely as the NOAA/NASA Suomi-NPP satellite. SatCam photos help SSEC to excellent the cloud mask products that are applied to information collected from the satellites. Cloud mask indicates whether or not a provided view of the Earth is obstructed by clouds or aerosol and can be misinterpreted when cloud temperature is also equivalent to ground temperature.

“SatCam is a terrific instance of a citizen science app that enables any individual with an iPhone to enable enhance the data products from instruments onboard 3 flagship Earth science missions,” mentioned Steve Graham, a senior outreach specialist for International Science and Technologies, Inc. at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. He has also been the outreach coordinator for the Aqua mission (formerly PM-1) since March 2000.

How WxSat Functions

Geostationary and polar orbiting weather satellites, like Suomi-NPP, constantly capture observations of the earth. Information from these satellites are acquired by the SSEC Data Center which has one of the most extensive collections of actual-time and archived climate satellite information in the planet. WxSat blends these photos into single hourly global composites for 3 diverse products (Visible, Infrared, and Water Vapor) and is updated just about every hour at 36 minutes previous the hour.

The names of the diverse photos in the WxSat app refer to the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum from which the satellite sensors are sampling. The three most widely applied atmospheric channels are the visible, infrared, and water vapor. NOAA forecasters combine information and facts from the three sorts of pictures to predict weather, monitor forest fires, ice flows, ocean currents, and lengthy term climate patterns from a worldwide viewpoint that only satellites can supply.

These SSEC apps are freely readily available to all interested users. To download and understand more about the SatCam and WxSat apps, pay a visit to: www.ssec.wisc.edu/apps

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