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(September 2014 ©ESA) Imaging Earth’s land with unprecedented speed and resolution has come another step closer as the next Sentinel satellite has been given its solar wing and started a strenuous six-month test campaign to make sure that it is fit for launch next April.

Sentinel-2A is the next of ESA’s suite of satellites to be launched for Europe’s Copernicus programme – the largest Earth monitoring programme in the world.

This new satellite carries a multispectral imager to deliver an unprecedented combination of spatial, spectral and temporal resolution, along with systematic coverage of land and coastal areas.

With a growing global population in mind, the mission will provide key information to optimise crop yield, thereby helping to improve food security. Data will also be used to measure leaf area index, leaf chlorophyll and leaf water content to monitor plant growth. This will support effective crop management during the growing season.

As well as monitoring vegetation growth, the mission can be used to generate land-cover maps and to monitor the world’s forests. It will also provide information on pollution in lakes and coastal waters. Images of floods, volcanic eruptions and landslides will also be offered to respond to disasters and help humanitarian relief efforts.

Since users need this information as fast as possible, the satellite also carries a laser to transmit data to the European Data Relay System, EDRS, for fast delivery to Earth. EDRS is a network of ground stations and multiple satellites in geostationary orbit designed for relaying data.

Engineers at Airbus Defence and Space in Friedrichshafen, Germany, spent the summer carefully equipping the satellite with its state of-the-art multispectral imager and putting it all through a comprehensive set of functional and performance tests.

With this major milestone ticked off, the satellite was shipped to IABG in Ottobrunn in early August and now started a comprehensive range of tests.

Over the next six months it will be put through a wide range of mechanical, thermal, electromagnetic checks before it is shipped to Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana for launch on a Vega rocket.

One of the first steps was to carefully connect the three-panel solar array to the satellite. This painstaking process took three days and was done on a special zero-g rig to simulate the absence of gravity. The wing was opened and tested with light to make sure it will generate the correct power for the satellite once in space.
Sentinel-2 brings land into focus

In addition, the satellite’s mass, centre of gravity and ‘moment of inertia’ have been accurately determined. This is important for the launch and for the satellite’s release into orbit around Earth.

Over the next months, tests will be carried out to check the satellite’s interfaces with the rocket and to make sure that it can withstand the noise and vibrations during liftoff.

As part of preparing for the mission, ground system validation and commission activities are currently ongoing. The final Qualification and Acceptance Review will be held in February, before ESA gives permission to ship the satellite to French Guiana for launch.

Since Sentinel-2 is designed as a two-satellite mission, the Sentinel-2B satellite, which will launch about 15 months after Sentinel-2A, is also being developed in parallel.

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©Matt Ball. Sensors&Systems. The small satellite market has been heating up over the past few years, with many new companies looking to launch constellations of satellites.

Surrey Satellite has been at the forefront of this movement, with a mission to change the economics of space, and a growing commitment to the market in the United States. Sensors & Systems (S&S) editor Matt Ball recently spoke with Doug Gerull, chief operating officer of Surrey Satellite Technology US LLC (Surrey), about the company’s growing presence in the United States, the evolution of the small satellite market, and upcoming missions that will soon fill the satellite manufacturing clean room in their Colorado office.

S&S: One of the things that fascinates me about Surrey overall is the scientific innovation with all of your off-the-shelf sensors that are also combined with launch scheduling, bringing high-performing satellite platforms to a much broader audience. Now you’ve added the Orbital Test Bed (OTB) that allows for space testing of sensors, providing essentially a laboratory for testing. It’s almost as if you’re pioneering scientific rigor for satellite development as a service.

Gerull: In the case of OTB, we are selling reliable platforms to access space. Going to space on a Surrey bus is a safe way to get there, that has been proven. Also, because we are cost effective, it’s an affordable way to get there.

We often talk about closing the business case, and keeping it closed is one of the difficulties for organizations that have payloads orphaned by other programs. You have a payload that often costs X millions of dollars, a certain amount of years of time and effort, and then you find that your ride to space is gone through a change in another program. Getting another ride to space, both in terms of platform and launch, can be difficult.

Our OTB concept has many advantages — Surrey has a rapid launch tempo, we’re open to accommodating other payloads, we have a lower price point, we have experience, and we work globally. That gives our customers a way to get to space that they may not have otherwise.

On larger and more complex programs, the ability to squeeze in and put your small payload on there and get to space can be really hard to accomplish. We give our customers an avenue to get there.

S&S: With the OTB concept, it sounds tricky to design and tune the satellite to meet the needs of a diversity of sensors.

Gerull: We have to design the spacecraft to accommodate all of the payloads properly. From the various pointing requirements, communications bandwidth downlink and payload operations. We’ll be controlling the OTB mission from here, downlinking the data from the various experiments to our own dish and then sending the data to the various payload providers. We do offer a complete service that makes it a lot easier for customers to concentrate on their science.

A good customer example is NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a very accomplished group of scientists and engineers. They are putting the Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) up on our platform, but we’re actually running the satellite, and downloading the data, and that lets them concentrate on the science of their mission, and the payload itself.

S&S: How did you go about determining the orbit of OTB, and working with the various payload customers on integration?

Gerull: We already had an idea of what OTB was going to accomplish from our perspective, and we had to take payloads that were compatible with that. The orbit wouldn’t be compatible with an earth observation mission, for example, because those are typically near polar and sun sync. It worked out that these payloads are all compatible, and the testing platforms were all good for them.

S&S: Does it take longer sometimes than others on these shared payloads to fill your available capacity?

Gerull: The question about filling all the seats on the ride is very much on our minds because we plan on repeating this experience. In the case of OTB itself, it’s a specialized skill to take the five payloads, including our own composite experiments, and integrate them all. All of these components and missions, whether solar or radiation detection, or the atomic clock, all have different parameters, have to be run at different times, send out at different data rates, etc.. They have to be positioned, with some that need to look in a certain direction and not be obscured. They all assume they’re the only thing on the payload for their own experimental objectives.

The skill set to take all the payloads and put them on a single satellite so that they all work, and everyone gets the benefit of a shared ride, is pretty unique. It’s like a very complicated Lego set where all the pieces are random shapes. The team we have in the United States is getting more accomplished at that, and we plan on keeping that as a business line. The team in the UK is already well experienced with that, because they’ve been doing it for some time.

S&S: For satellite launches, do you have a number of slots on different rockets lined up? Is that the way it works?

Gerull: There are hard arrangements with a time and date and a mission in mind, and then there are softer arrangements where you keep your eyes and ears open. You’d think that it would be more discrete and nailed down because these launches are very expensive, but it’s not like that. Sometime Surrey will negotiate a block of launches in advance in anticipation of business to get a better price. It’s like any other commodity, where you can negotiate economy of scale if you have it.

We tend to get most of our benefit in the UK because of our rapid tempo. We’ve worked with every satellite launch provider, with the exception of the Japanese and Chinese. All of the launch providers know that Surrey will be launching more satellites every few months. The team in the UK has a lot of experience and knows what the launch industry is doing with a high degree of certainty.

Bigger missions that have a high cost tend to be more concrete, tying up their own rocket at times, and you won’t see other aerospace manufacturers running around to the extent that Surrey does, interfacing with everyone in the launch industry all the time to see if there is space available. Sometimes we end up brokering the launch service as a separate business because we’re active and we know what’s going on.

We’re not the biggest or most expensive, but we are very active when you look at the number of satellites that we put up.

S&S: That ties into the more and more smaller satellites, with the micro satellite revolution that seems to be upon us. The barriers are coming down with the commercialization of space, with a lot of new companies out there.

Gerull: You have to think that the trends are in that direction. There are a lot of reasons that this is happening as it’s a complex model, but one of the key things is that it’s less and less about capacity and more about capabilities. There was a tight equation between size and what you could do with it up until recently. As the technologies started to minimize, and as technologies started to make their way to space that weren’t exclusively designed for space, we’ve had more interest. We’ve had astronauts take their phones into space and have had more computing power in those than the processors running the Shuttle.

As the capabilities of parts from ground-based industry became usable in space, it drove costs down. For instance the CAN Bus, which is used in automotive circles, has been used in Surrey’s satellites for a long time now. It’s reliable, as the auto industry has to make things reliable because they can’t tolerate a lot of defects. We gain a very flexible networking interfacing system that is designed for a huge industry that is going to keep it stable and modern, and they are paying for the development costs. Taking those parts to space keeps the costs down, and instead of getting all the aerospace manufacturers to downsize and standardize their products, the auto industry is paying for ongoing research and development. They keep it up to date, and it’s the standard across manufacturers.

The capabilities of payloads have also improved. Now, small telescopes that would take a lot of mass and weight to accomplish a certain resolution a few years ago are now being miniaturized. The capabilities are no longer completely tied to the size of the spacecraft, and that means we now get small spacecraft that have the capability of a very large one just a decade ago. That trend line is just continuing. The capabilities are getting better, and the spacecraft sizes are getting smaller, so it’s great for Surrey.

S&S: Weight is such an issue in space, are you shaving off any weight on the components as you make them ready for space?

Gerull: We’re looking at innovative ways to make use of excess launch capacity. Sometimes the space within payloads right now is not utilized. So there’s been some experiments and missions where they use an “ESPA ring” to actually be the spacecraft rather than just the mounting space between. There are often two to three thousand kilograms that could go to space, but the space just isn’t being utilized for technical, time constraints, or other issues.

Sometimes miniaturization is not the goal. Components are getting pretty small anyway, and now it’s a state of taking existing components and integrating them, without the need to miniaturize things ourselves. The trend in electronics is to make things smaller, which is in our favor since we don’t have to accelerate that. Materials are getting stronger and lighter, generally, too.

It’s mainly a matter of taking advantage of the latest tools, new capabilities, engineering and science, and applying them to the problem as opposed to us having to go out there and address miniaturizing the components. Surrey has excelled at taking advantage of things that are there, and putting them together in creative ways to come up with a new solution that’s smaller, cheaper, faster — and changing the economics of space.

S&S: Low earth orbit (LEO) is pretty much where most of your satellites are placed, is that right?

Gerull: That’s true if you analyze all the missions we’ve done to date. That’s been the most benign environment for smallsats. Going back close to 30 years now, the parts that we have to work with are more radiation and fault tolerant generally than they were then, and we have built larger spacecraft for higher orbits and tougher radiation environments.

GIOVE-A (the precursor to the European Galileo navigation satellites) has been up there nine years now in a NEO orbit. So, we’ve proven that we can build a satellite quickly and robustly, in a very short timeline (it was built in just two years) to send a signal down so that they could verify the signal frequency.

Following on from that, Surrey builds the Galileo payloads, and they go out of our facility at a consistent rate. They get put on a different vendor’s spacecraft, but we have capability to build both payloads and platforms. Lastly, we are developing and going through certification now, our new GEO (geo-stationary) platforms, which is the toughest radiation orbit. We intend to play more in the GEO belt.

S&S: Is there a move toward more constellations of your own? You’ve certainly pioneered earth observation satellite constellations with DMCii, and a lot of these new companies are talking about having more than 20 satellites with daily imagery refresh rates.

Gerull: It’s part of our customer’s plans, so it’s part of our plans. The constellations are a direct result of the fact that satellites are more cost effective and more affordable now, so that lends itself to being able to afford more and then examining if that helps the mission. Better yet, a mission that might not have been possible with one more expensive satellite might be possible for four or five less expensive ones.

For example, when revisit time is the point of interest, one big satellite may help you capture a lot of data, but you may not revisit as often. Those equations are changing quickly.

The general trend is that satellites are smaller, less expensive, and more capable so you have options of what you can do with more of them. This gives you the systems like RapidEye and others that are good examples. That’s what you can do with multiple satellites that are less expensive; and of course your risks are spread. Constellations are a natural outgrowth of more capable small satellites, and that’s just going to grow I think.

DMCii as you mentioned is a constellation of satellites of different types that can be activated for missions such as disaster response. We have customers that built the satellites for their own reasons and own missions, and then the idea was to provide a secondary source for distributing their extra capacity. We have all these customers with disparate needs, and their data business provides them a compelling cost recovery, but our main mission is still to build satellites, so we’re not a competitor to any earth observation data providers.

S&S: The new small satellite companies are marketing themselves as Internet-based data providers, with Silicon Valley locations as their calling cards. What’s your take on these companies?

Gerull: Kudos to Skybox and Planet Labs, with their business models and innovation, and certainly raising awareness. The long-term test will be the products that they will deliver for geospatial use. They have definitely cut new ground in terms of speed of financing. If there’s one big takeaway from Google’s purchase of Skybox, it’s a validation of smallsats.

S&S: Are you seeing more interests from new startup companies that are looking to Surrey to build a constellation?

Gerull: Yes. That is getting into our strengths. We are an open company in the sense that we sell everything we make. We’re also vertically integrated in the sense that we build telescopes, we build sensors, we build our own reaction wheels, you name it. There’s very little of the spacecraft that we don’t build internally.

The other way we’re open is that while we’re vertically integrated we’re not wedded to our own telescope, for example. If a customer comes to us with an idea for a new remote sensing system that requires something different than what we’ve engineered, we look to other sources before building a new one.

Because Surrey has a track record of being cost effective, we have a heightened launch tempo, and we have a high capability in a broad array of domain expertise (communications, navigation, earth observation), so we are a logical choice for entrepreneurial efforts. Our legacy is heritage systems, and deriving systems from baselines that have already flown, which is how we keep the cost down. The fact that we’ve done it before means when we sit down with the customer, and if they use all our capabilities to design a complete system, they get the maximum benefit out of Surrey.

We get a lot of interest, and of course we can’t talk about the companies because they’re often competitors of each other. We’re in the satellite building business, and it’s exciting right now because a lot of interesting things are occurring.

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Legendary investor Warren Buffett advises to be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

One way we can try to measure the level of fear in a given stock is through a technical analysis indicator called the Relative Strength Index, or RSI, which measures momentum on a scale of zero to 100. A stock is considered to be oversold if the RSI reading falls below 30.

In trading on Friday, shares of DigitalGlobe Inc (NYSE: DGI) entered into oversold territory, hitting an RSI reading of 26.7, after changing hands as low as $26.73 per share. By comparison, the current RSI reading of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is 36.7. A bullish investor could look at DGI’s 26.7 RSI reading today as a sign that the recent heavy selling is in the process of exhausting itself, and begin to look for entry point opportunities on the buy side. The chart below shows the one year performance of DGI shares:

Looking at the chart above, DGI’s low point in its 52 week range is $26.02 per share, with $43.13 as the 52 week high point — that compares with a last trade of $26.92. Find out what 9 other oversold stocks you need to know about

According to the ETF Finder at ETFChannel.com, DGI makes up 2.86% of the SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF (AMEX: XAR) which is trading lower by about 1.5% on the day Friday.

BERLIN, Oct. 9, 2014—INTERGEO 2014 in Berlin has clearly demonstrated that the industry really has secured its place in the digital, networked world. Geoinformation has evolved from a specialist niche and is becoming part of mainstream IT. The trade show focuses on products and applications in a digital world. The geoinformation industry is being, and will continue to be, shaped by applications that address important social issues. INTERGEO reflects these issues.


“Our thanks go to Google, for all the attention that geo applications have gained since the launch of Google Earth.” This is how one INTERGEO exhibitor summed up the current market dynamic in the innovative geoinformation sector. Technology leads to applications and complex data streams yield crucial information – this puts the geoinformation industry at the heart of important social developments in a digital world.

INTERGEO – a growing forum for dialogue and the industry

This trend is reflected at INTERGEO in increasing internationalisation and rising exhibitor and visitor numbers. A brief look at the figures shows an increase of around ten percent in overall visitor attendance (over 17,000 in 2014) and in the number of visitors from outside Germany (around 35 percent of the total). More than 45 percent of visitors said that they were responsible for or involved in decision-making processes. According to the results of the visitor survey that are now available, the most popular topic with visitors this year was GIS software, followed by surveying equipment and integrated surveying solutions. This year’s conference attracted some 1.400 delegates.

Dr. Karl-Friedrich Thöne, INTERGEO organiser and President of the DVW (German Society for Geodesy, Geoinformation and Land Management) sums up the success of the event: “The numbers prove that our trade fair and conference addressed the right subjects. Full rooms and a great atmosphere in the exhibition halls and conference rooms are in my opinion the best indication that the 20th INTERGEO is on the right track.”

Olaf Freier from the organisers, HINTE GmbH, adds: “Once again, INTERGEO brought together the big international players in the geo community. As an industry forum, INTERGEO is ideally placed to meet the need for knowledge-sharing and orientation in the complex field of data capture and data use. In 2015, we will be building on and expanding our position as the largest UAV forum in the German-speaking world.”

Added value from public data

Spearheaded by Germany’s Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of the Environment, the third national INSPIRE Conference was also a great success. Here, too, it was demonstrated that geoinformation is increasingly finding its way into areas of major social importance, including e-government, digital administration, security and disaster protection. In her keynote speech, German Federal Environment Minister Dr. Barbara Hendricks clearly expressed her support for open data. She said that the federal government had adopted a guiding principle of releasing publically obtained data into the value-added chain. “The public should not have to pay for the same thing twice,” Dr. Barbara Hendricks said.

The event, organised by the GeoBusiness Commission (GIW Kommission), also focused on the “market activation of public geoinformation”. Parliamentary State Secretary Brigitte Zypries made an urgent appeal for coordinated collaboration: “Cooperation and coordination are key to developing the geoinformation industry. This applies equally to federal government, regional administrations and industry.”

Positive image of INTERGEO boosts recruitment campaign

Attracting up-and-coming talent is still essential to keeping the market dynamic. In this respect, INTERGEO has clearly proved itself as an international careers forum. The international student meeting, JobSHAKER and targeted campaigns by associations and companies have taken effect. In the words of DVW President Thöne: “The number of students in Germany and Austria studying geodesy and geoinformation is rising significantly!” As the leading trade fair and conference for geodesy, geoinformation and land management, INTERGEO conveys the positive image of a high-tech industry, which is crucial when seeking to encourage the next generation into this future-oriented sector.

The 21st INTERGEO will be held in Stuttgart in 2015. From 15 to 17 September 2015, the focus of the conference will be on modernising infrastructure.

Further information is available at www.intergeo.de

Events Autumn 2014


Start Date End Date Event Web Venue
01-oct-14 03-oct-14 Information for Meeting Africa’s Agricultural Transformation and Food Security Goals web Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
03-oct-14 05-oct-14 [GRMSE2014] 2nd Annual International Conference on Geo-Informatics in Resource Management & Sustainable Ecosystem web Michigan, USA
03-oct-14 05-oct-14 Global Environment, Stakeholders’ Profile and Corporate Governance in Geodesy web Zagreb, Croatia
05-oct-14 08-oct-14 Global Risk Forum GRF Davos, from thoughts to Action web Davos, Switzerland
06-oct-14 08-oct-14 Symposium on Service-Oriented Mapping 2014 – SOMAP 2014 “Geospatial Processing and Visualization” web Potsdam, Germany
07-oct-14 10-oct-14 ICSO 2014 web Tenerife, Spain
08-oct-14 09-oct-14 imaGIne-2 CONFERENCE web Berlin, Germany
08-oct-14 09-oct-14 Food Security Summit: Asia 2014 web Jakarta, Indonesia
07-oct-14 07-oct-14 OPEN DAYS 2014 Workshop “SPACE4REGIONS”: Satellite solutions as a driver for innovation and growth web Brussels, Belgium
07-oct-14 09-oct-14 INTERGEO 2014 web Berlin, Germany
07-oct-14 09-oct-14 UAV Show Europe web Merignac, France
08-oct-14 09-oct-14 2nd EUROGI imaGIne conference web Berlin, Germany
13-oct-14 14-oct-14 Space days 2014, Space value on Earth web Brussels, Belgium
13-oct-14 17-oct-14 Climate Research and Earth Observations from Space: Climate Information for Decision Making web Darmstadt, Germany
13-oct-14 17-oct-14 Radar 2014 web Lille, France
14-oct-14 14-oct-14 2nd ETSI /EC DG CONNECT Workshop on Smart Appliances web Sophia Antipolis, France
14-oct-14 15-oct-14 Esri Malaysia User Conference web PICC, Malaysia
14-oct-14 16-oct-14 9th International Soil Science Congress on The Soul of Soil and Civilization web Antalya, Turkey
14-oct-14 16-oct-14 GeoForm+ web Moscow, Russia
17-oct-14 20-oct-14 Mathematical Morphology in Geosciences and Geoinformatics web New Delhi, India
20-oct-14 23-oct-14 14th International Scientific and Technical Conference “From Imagery to Map: Digital Photogrammetric Technologies” web Hainan, China
21-oct-14 22-oct-14 ASPRS UAS Symposium web Reno-Nevada, USA
21-oct-14 22-oct-14 Mapping with Unmanned Aircraft Systems web Reno-Nevada, USA
23-oct-14 23-oct-14 OECD Space Forum web Paris, France
23-oct-14 24-oct-14 8th Coastal Altimetry Workshop web Lake Constance, Germany
23-oct-14 24-oct-14 Satellite Masters Conference 2014
Forward-thinking applications for Galileo and Copernicus
web Berlin, Germany
23-oct-14 24-oct-14 From Imagery to Map: digital photogrammetric technologies. 14th International Scientific and Technical Conference web Hainan, China
27-oct-14 31-oct-14 10th International Conference of the African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE) web Johannesburg, South Africa
27-oct-14 31-oct-14 35th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing web Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar
28-oct-14 30-oct-14 7th EuroGOOS conference web Lisbon, Portugal
28-oct-14 31-oct-14 Earth Observation for Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions Science web Frascati, Italy
30-oct-14 30-oct-14 Blue Marble Geographics web Houston,USA
30-oct-14 31-oct-14 Irish Earth Observation Symposium web Maynooth University, Ireland
03-nov-14 05-nov-14 Trimble Dimensions 2014 web Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A.
04-nov-14 04-nov-14 GeoDATA 2014 web Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.
04-nov-14 06-nov-14 AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Program Review web Va, USA
04-nov-14 07-nov-14 2014 ForestSAT conference web Riva del Garda (TN), Italy
04-nov-14 07-nov-14 ARSI 2014 and KEO 2014 web Noordwijk, The Netherlands
05-nov-14 06-nov-14 WWEM 2014 web Telford, UK
05-nov-14 07-nov-14 NCGG7 – Seventh International Symposium on Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases web Amsterdam, The Netherlands
09-nov-14 11-nov-14 2nd annual geo-empower middle east summit web Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
09-nov-14 11-nov-14 5th Digital Earth Summit web Nagoya, Japan
11-nov-14 13-nov-14 GeoCOM: The changing face of GEO web Warwick,UK
12-nov-14 12-nov-14 BIDS’14 SME and Industry Corner web Frascati, Italy
12-nov-14 14-nov-14 Conference on Big Data from Space (BiDS ’14) – Research, Technology and Innovation (RT&I) web Frascati, Italy
13-nov-14 14-nov-14 Understanding the Carbon and Water Cycles using SMOS Data and Models web Toulouse, France
13-nov-14 14-nov-14 GEO XI Plenary web Geneva, Switzerland
17-nov-14 18-nov-14 Interdisciplinary Workshop on Risk Information Management, Risk Models, and Applications web Berlin, Germany
17-nov-14 21-nov-14 Conference: 2nd International Ocean Research Conference (IORC) web Barcelona, Spain
19-nov-14 19-nov-14 2nd EARSC certification workshop web Brussels, Belgium
20-nov-14 21-nov-14 Blue Economy and Geoinformation Services for Sustainable Growth in Coastal Regions web Bari, Italy
20-nov-14 21-nov-14 The 2nd International conference of GIS Users web Meknes, Morocco
25-nov-14 27-nov-14 Asia Geospatial Forum 2014 web Jakarta, Indonesia
25-nov-14 28-nov-14 5th International GOCE User Workshop web Paris, France
26-nov-14 28-nov-14 Ocean Salinity Science and Salinity Remote Sensing Workshop web Exeter, United Kingdom
02-dec-14 04-dec-14 RPAS CivOps Conference web Brussels, Belgium
02-dec-14 04-dec-14 Storm Surge web Geneva, Switzerland
02-dec-14 05-dec-14 FOSS4G-Asia (Free and Open Source Software for Geoinformatics) web Bangkok, Thailand
04-dec-14 04-dec-14 Geodata 2014, London web London, UK
08-dec-14 10-dec-14 C-SIGMA V web Tokyo, Japan
09-dec-14 10-dec-14 Africa Geospatial Forum 2014 web Lagos, Nigeria
10-dec-14 11-dec-14 Safe Cities 2014 web Madrid, Spain
11-dec-14 11-dec-14 Spatial planning and geoinformation services for regional development web Debrecen, Hungary
15-dec-14 17-dec-14 GRSG 2014 web London, UK
15-dec-14 19-dec-14 AGU Fall Meeting web San Francisco, USA
16-dec-14 17-dec-14 25 Years of Geological Remote Sensing web London, UK
18-jan-15 23-jan-15 Arctic Frontiers – Climate and Energy web Tromso, Norway
19-jan-15 21-jan-15 DGI2015 web London, UK
20-jan-15 21-jan-15 Global Workshop on Spatial Data and Map web Valletta, Malta
26-jan-15 30-jan-15 POLInSAR 2015 web Frascati, Italy
27-jan-15 28-jan-15 European Space Policy web Brussels, Belgium
27-jan-15 30-jan-15 1st BIOMASS Science Workshop web Frascati, Italy
02-feb-15 05-feb-15 The Unmanned Systems Expo (TUSExpo) web The Hague, The Netherlands
10-feb-15 13-feb-15 ADM-Aeolus Science and Cal/Val Workshop web Frascati, Italy
18-feb-15 19-feb-15 Legal and Economic Aspects for European space services and applications web Starnberger See (Munich), Germany
23-feb-15 25-feb-15 EO Event: International LiDAR Mapping Forum 2015 web Denver, Colorado, USA
03-mar-15 05-mar-15 Geospatial Advancement Canada 2015 web Ottawa, Canada
11-mar-15 12-mar-15 Earth Observation for the Oil and gas Industry web Frascati, Italy
12-mar-15 12-apr-15 Priorities for developing the UK space sector – infrastructure, regulation, innovation and collaboration web Cyprus, Cyprus
18-mar-15 19-apr-15 Mapping Water Bodies from Space – MWBS 2015 web Frascati, Italy
23-mar-15 27-mar-15 FRINGE 2015 Workshop web Frascati (Rome), Italy
25-mar-15 27-mar-15 ISPRS workshop High resolution imaging for geospatial Information and PIA – Photogrammetric Image Analysis web Munich, Germany
30-mar-15 01-apr-15 Joint Urban Remote Sensing (JURSE) web Lausanne, Switzerland
14-apr-15 16-apr-15 9th EARSeL Workshop on Imaging Spectroscopy in Luxembourg web Luxemburg, Luxemburg
04-may-15 08-may-15 ASPRS 2015 Annual Conference web Tampa, FL, U.S.A.
11-may-15 15-may-15 International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE) web Berlin, Germany
12-may-15 14-may-15 ECCA 2015 – 2nd European Climate Change Adaptation Conference web Copenhagen, Denmark
20-may-15 23-may-15 International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering (ICOCEE – Cappadocia 2015) web Nevsehir, Turkey
25-may-15 29-may-15 INSPIRE web Lisbon, Portugal
25-may-15 29-may-15 Geospatial World Forum web Lisbon, Portugal
25-may-15 29-may-15 2nd SMOS Science Conference web Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
27-may-15 28-may-15 Geobussiness web London, UK
02-jun-15 03-jun-15 OECD conference web Paris, France
09-jun-15 12-jun-15 Sustainable Use and Management of Soil, Sediment and (Ground)Water Resources web Copenhagen, Denmark
09-jun-15 12-jun-15 Spatial Statistics: Emerging Patterns web Avignon, France
15-jun-15 19-jun-15 35th EARSeL Symposium & Workshop on Temporal Analysis web Stockholm, Sweden
17-jun-15 19-jun-15 EARSeL Workshop on Remote Sensing of hte Coastal Zone web Stockholm, Sweden
22-jun-15 02-jul-15 26th International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics general assembly web Prague, Czech Republic
29-jun-15 03-jul-15 EUCASS 2015: 6th european conference for aeronautics and space sciences web Kraków, Poland
22-jul-15 24-jul-15 8th International Workshop on the Analysis of Multi-temporal Remote Sensing of Image web Annecy, France
26-jul-15 31-jul-15 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2015 (IGARSS 2015) web Milan, Italy
09-sep-15 11-sep-15 ICE Coastal Management web -, The Netherlands

Eomag launched 15October2014

There are dozens of emerging space nations around the world seeking to capitalize on dramatic increases in space technology accessibility. We take a look at one such nation, the United Arab Emirates, exploring the opportunities and challenges they face on the road to achieving space capability.

Entry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) into the Space Age occurred in the 1990s prompted by an interest in enhancing national capacity to effectively create, use, and exploit space science technologies and applications. In 2006, a UAE government decree by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, established the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST). The step signalled the nation’s commitment to developing excellence within the space industry. EIAST was established as part of a strategic initiative to promote scientific innovation and space technology advancement, and to inspire sustainable development in the UAE. American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, speaking at the April 2014 Global Aerospace Summit in Abu Dhabi, expressed his opinion that the UAE will play a role in the next stage of space exploration as the country’s industry moves from being government policy-driven to commercial development-driven.

Dubai’s Satellites

EIAST became the first Dubai government entity to own an Earth observation satellite in orbit when DubaiSat-1 was launched in July 2009, following three years of joint development between EIAST and South Korea-based Satrec Initiative (SI). In developing DubaiSat-1, EIAST’s goal was to engage in a scientific knowledge and technology transfer program to jumpstart the institute’s satellite projects. DubaiSat-1 was followed by another three-year joint development of a more advanced imaging Earth observation spacecraft, DubaiSat-2, launched into orbit in November 2013. During its development, EIAST engineers took the lead to design mission requirements and develop a higher imaging resolution system and advanced components, supported by South Korean experts.

Both satellites have a 5-year design life and are currently nominally operational in their orbits. Launched from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan aboard the Dnepr vehicle of the Russian International Space Company Kosmotras in Moscow on 29 July 2009, DubaiSat-1 flies in a descending Sun-synchronous near-circular orbit (North to South), at 686-km altitude above the Earth’s surface, and goes round the Earth about sixteen times a day. DubaiSat-2 flies in an ascending Sun-synchronous near-circular orbit (South to North), at 600-km altitude, with about 8-day effective revisit time for any ground location with spacecraft body-pointing capability. The altitudes, orbits, and revisit times allow both satellites to work well in constellation and give a better coverage of the UAE.

In March 2014, the EIAST team started conceptualization of its third and most technologically advanced Earth imaging satellite DubaiSat-3, dubbed KhalifaSat after the UAE President, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Projected for launch in 2017, KhalifaSat will be one of the smallest satellites in the world capable of providing sub-meter images. The project is the culmination of a three-step approach intended to achieve full capabilities, knowledge, facilities, and research ability to develop advanced satellite missions by Emirati scientists and engineers on UAE soil. When launched, the success of KhalifaSat would represent a shift in UAE’s economy from being dependent on importing space technologies to in-house development.

Building Indigenous Capability

EIAST is made up of a core team of 27 Emeriti engineers who are working to position their country as a player in the global space industry. Amer Mohammed Al Sayegh, an aerospace engineer, is Senior Director of Space Systems Development Department at EIAST. He joined the institute in 2005, participated in its knowledge transfer program, and remains a key figure in the development of EIAST satellite projects. Sayegh contributed to the development of the Attitude Control System for DubaiSat-1, managed system-level engineering, and developed an agile Attitude Control System for DubaiSat-2. He is currently the Project Manager for the KhalifaSat project. Space Safety Magazine contacted Eng. Amer Al Sayegh to get some insight into EIAST development since 2006.

Observing UAE

Structural photo of the 200-Kg DubaiSat-1 imaging microsatellite, a cylindrical body of hexagonal shape, showing two of its three deployable solar panels in manufacturing room of Satrec Initiative, Daejeon, South Korea (Credits: EIAST).

For decades, developed countries have relied on satellite-based services to support informed decision making processes, policy implementation, and compliance monitoring in all sectors of society. “EIAST civil land imaging spacecraft is increasingly successful and could soon become popular because it is a proven policy instrument and access to space capabilities is affordable,” says Sayegh. “The need for scientific data and images as leveraging instruments in monitoring compliance of social, economic, and security policies is one of the reasons why Earth observation is EIAST’s primary mission of choice.” The UAE Government invests primarily in EIAST Earth observation projects, although other satellite applications are part of the institute’s space project portfolio.

To illustrate how EIAST’s Earth observation is yielding short term benefits, Sayegh asserts that imaging instruments on DubaiSat-1 and DubaiSat-2 are being used “to protect forests, plan urban growth, harness water resources, manage coastal zones, plan and manage crises.” The DubaiSat-1 imaging system had recorded more than 10,000 images of the globe as of December 2012. Using the images, analysts can zoom into selected areas worldwide and identify car-sized objects at almost any time, similar to the resolution of images typically seen on Google Maps.

“DubaiSat-1 and DubaiSat-2 images are used, for example, to make study cases of the continuous development that is happening in the city of Dubai; we provide regular images to developers to monitor the progress of their projects,” Sayegh relates. “DubaiSat-1 images were used by governments and organizations in making decisions to provide emergency services and to monitor crises including the 2010 floods in Pakistan, 2010 Chilean mine collapse, and 2011 Japanese tsunami”; although UAE is not yet a member of the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, an international stature only available through satellites. Sayegh’s perspective concurs with the established view that Earth observation missions enhance socio-economic development of countries, with benefits for user populations, various industry sectors, education, and research.

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A $26 million science instrument carried to the International Space Station last month by SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule has been switched on and is measuring winds over the world’s oceans to help forecasters track the intensity of tropical cyclones, NASA officials said.

Made of leftover parts from a satellite developed in the 1990s, the instrument package was mounted on the outside of the space station to fill a data gap that could degrade the ability of meteorologists to monitor hurricanes.

Without the need for a dedicated launcher or a standalone satellite, NASA saved more than $300 million by recycling spare parts launching the wind monitoring sensor to the space station, according to Howard Eisen, the mission’s project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“RapidScat is the ultimate effort in recycling,” Eisen said. “We took hardware, some of which was 17 or 18 years old, and we put it to new use.”

The International Space Station-Rapid Scatterometer, or ISS-RapidScat, instrument launched from Cape Canaveral on Sept. 21 in the unpressurized trunk section of an unmanned SpaceX Dragon supply ship.

The Dragon spacecraft, carrying more than 2.5 tons of pressurized and unpressurized cargo such as food, experiments and spare parts, arrived at the space station Sept. 23.

Under the control of engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the station’s Canadian-built robot arm and Dextre manipulator — a two-armed device with mechanical hands — completed a two-step procedure to pull the RapidScat instrument and its mounting adapter from the Dragon spaceship’s trunk.

The first step on Sept. 29 attached an adapter for RapidScat to an external platform on the space station’s European Columbus laboratory module. After engineers made sure the adapter had a firm mechanical and electrical attachment to the station, the outpost’s robotics system extracted the RapidScat sensor system and mated it to the adapter plate on Columbus.

The instrument was powered up Oct. 1, according to a NASA press release, and it should be supplying weather forecasters with operational data by the end of the month.

RapidScat’s primary sensor is a 100 watt, 2.5-foot-diameter microwave antenna that spins at nearly 20 rpm, emitting and receiving signals bounced off the ocean’s surface.

From those signals, scientists can process data on wind speed and direction by analyzing returns reflected off the ocean at different angles, helping hurricane forecasters and climate researchers keep track of short-term and long-term trends.

One of the first weather systems observed by RapidScat was then Tropical Storm Simon off the west coast of Mexico.

“Most satellite missions require weeks or even months to produce data of the quality that we seem to be getting from the first few days of RapidScat,” said Ernesto Rodriguez, RapidScat project scientist Ernesto Rodriguez at JPL. “We have been very lucky that within the first days of operations we have already been able to observe a developing tropical cyclone.”

Engineers constructed RapidScat out of components originally manufactured for NASA’s QuikScat mission, which launched in 1999 but stopped producing wind speed data in 2009 when the satellite’s main antenna quit rotating.

The space station does not have the same global coverage as a satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit, which flies over a given location at roughly the same time each day.

But with the end of QuikScat’s mission and the loss of a sensor on India’s Oceansat 2 satellite in February, scientists faced a hole in ocean wind measurements from space.

“We’ve lost the capability, due to some losses in the international constellation, to do this global monitoring on a daily basis,” Rodriguez said in a press briefing before RapidScat’s launch.

RapidScat’s microwave radar can see a 500-mile-wide swath of the ocean as the space station flies overhead, but it must be switched off during certain space station operations such as spacewalks where astronauts will pass close to the instrument. The radar’s coverage will also be restricted when unmanned supply ships are attached to the station’s Harmony module, Eisen said.

Coupled with data from a similar instrument on Europe’s polar-orbiting MetOp weather satellites, RapidScat will give scientists a daily view of winds in the same region.

“Right now, I think the biggest impact it will have is the ability to close the gap on seeing things that change quickly — like hurricanes,” Rodriguez said. “Right now, it can happen and it does happen, that the (European) ASCAT scatterometer will completely miss a hurricane that’s intensifying. By having an additional platform that helps bridge that gap, we will have at least daily observations of hurricanes.

“This is especially important not as it approaches land, where we have airborne facilities, but when it’s forming and when it’s actually starting to move. Predicting things like where it’s going to move from Africa all the way to America is really hard with satellites, and having that daily observation really helps.”

RapidScat is scheduled for a two-year mission on the space station. By then, scientists hope India can launch a satellite with another scatterometer for maritime wind measurements.

RapidScat’s arrival at the International Space Station marks the first of at least five Earth observing instruments to launch to the complex over the next few years.

The space station’s viewpoint “doesn’t get to the poles, but it does view the lower latitudes, between plus or minus 50 or so degrees, with much more frequent repeat cycle and also at different times of day” than polar-orbiting free-flying satellites, said Steve Volz, associate director for flight programs in NASA’s Earth science division.

Next up is the Cloud Aerosol Transport System, a laser instrument to measure the location and distribution of clouds, pollutant particles, dust and smoke in the atmosphere. The CATS instrument is set to launch on SpaceX’s next cargo resupply flight in December for attachment outside the station’s Japanese experiment module.

Flying remote sensing instruments on the space station comes with cost savings, but it has forced engineers to rethink the design of Earth-watching payloads after tailoring them to operate on traditional standalone satellites.

“It was a surprise for us to realize that the toughest thermal environment that we’ll ever see for the instrument is from that period of time where it goes from the (cargo) spacecraft and is attached to the station,” Volz said. “It’s an unpowered period of time. We’re not used to that. When we fly our satellites on robotic missions, we have power from the start. We don’t have to worry about thermal extremes.

“Understanding the steps in an ISS installation, there are a lot of things that are different from how we do it on free-flyers. They’re all surmountable, but they need to be understood and carefully looked at one step at a time,” Volz said.

In 2016, NASA plans to launch the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment 3 (SAGE 3) payload to study the ozone layer and climate change, and the Lightning Imaging Sensor to detect and locate lightning strikes over the tropics and mid-latitude regions.

Two more instruments will launch to the station later this decade: the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation will study forest canopy structure, and the Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station will study water use and water stress in vegetation.

There are also plans to expand commercial Earth observation missions on the space station. The Canadian company UrtheCast recently announced it will develop a high-resolution optical camera and radar imager to be placed outside the station’s Tranquility module in 2017.

“Now that we realize the capability of the ISS, we’re taking advantage of it,” Volz said.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.
Source

In many industries, the use of common standards benefits both the suppliers and the purchasers of products. The Oil & Gas and EO Service industries are no exceptions and this workshop seeks to look at the status of standards for geospatial information products supporting the Oil and Gas industry and how this applies particularly to the use of EO geospatial services throughout the sector.


The workshop will be divided into 3 sessions:
The morning plenary session for all attendees will look at the status of several activities having the goal to develop the use of standards for geospatial products. We shall hear from both users (purchasers) from the Oil and Gas industry and suppliers of EO information services. The goal is to develop a common understanding of what is available and what is happening to promote standards throughout the industry.

The afternoon session will be divided into two parts:
Parallel Workshops

  • O&G EO Workshop – mainly aimed at Oil & Gas geospatial experts, this workshop will look broadly at the use of geospatial products throughout the sector and where standardisation can help improve both efficacy and efficiency.
  • EO Industry Certification Workshop – mainly aimed at EO service providers, this workshop will be a follow-on to the EARSC Certification workshop held in April 2013. We shall hear from those companies which have been using the EARSC certification scheme documents, the lessons they have learned and what we have all learned from their experience.

Closing Plenary
The two parallel workshops will reconvene to present on the discussion outcomes and conclude by making recommendations on what can be done to improve the use of geospatial products and services throughout the Oil and Gas industry.
A common workshop report will be produced highlighting these recommendations.

Registration (02:10:2014).pdf
Programe & Logistics.pdf

Draft Programme

Morning Group Session: 09.00 – 12.30
Opening Plenary Session – O&G and EO Industry
Arrival & Coffee
Introduction and Workshop Objectives Colleen Abell – Tullow Oil
Richard Hall – Statoil, EO SC Chair
EO4OG Workshop Summary Ola Grabak – ESA
OGP EO Projects Overview EO Subcommittee – Richard Hall – Statoil
Oil Spill Response JIP – Richard Eyers – Shell?
Ice Monitoring JIPTBC
OGEO Portal – Geoff Sawyer – EARSC
OGC – Oil Spills, Common Operating Picture & Standards G. Percivall?
10.45 – 11.15 Coffee Break
Certification Workshop Summary Geoff Sawyer – EARSC
New Technologies for Offshore Monitoring – Taskforce Update Maarten Kuiper – BP
PERF Projects Summary Christian E. Haselwimmer – Chevron
Session Close: Afternoon Objective Review Richard Hall – Statoil
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch
Afternoon Session A: 13.30 – 16.15
O&G Industry EO Workshop
Review of Morning Session TBC
EO Workshop – Session Format (flash talks / discussion topics) TBC
Round Table Discussion All
15.45 – 16.15 Coffee Break
Afternoon Session B: 13.30 – 16.15
EO Industry Certification Workshop
Introduction to the meeting and the scheme T. Kukuk – GAFAG
The Certification Scheme Process P. Hollidge – Hollidge Consulting
Report from EO Service Providers
Stevenson Astrosat
AnsuR
Flyby
Planetek
Steve Lee
Hakon Eggemoen
Emilio Simeone
Sergio Samareli
Certification Body: LLoyds
Way Forward P. Hollidge – Hollidge Consulting
Round Table Discussion All
15.45 – 16.15 Coffee Break
Afternoon Group Session: 16.15 – 17.30
Closing Plenary Session – O&G and EO Industry
Session A – O&G EO Workshop – Feedback to Group TBC
Session B – Certification Workshop – Feedback to Group T. Kukuk – GAFAG
Discussion and Action Review TBC
Workshop Close Richard Hall – Statoil

was held on 25 September 2014 in Brussels with some 40 attendees. The EARSC event was an occasion to find partners to work together in the next round of H2020 calls.

It has been presented the next round of calls and information on the instruments and legalities of the space research programme. It was a splendid opportunity for networking with research institutions, academia and industry. Plus each participant had the opportunity to present their ideas for partnering on projects under the next H2020 calls.

A list participants and presentations can be found in the Research Corner in the EARSC Portal

At the Research Area you can find everything you need – information, partners, ideas – for developing your research project proposal. Find documents in the library, post announcements on the message wall, chat to other people in the lounge, learn in the classroom and when you are ready to develop your proposal further you can book a meeting room where you can discuss in more detail away from everyone else.

if you wish to sign-up simply fill in a request via the log-in page www.earsc-portal.eu

The Copernicus programme has the defined goal to generate economic growth and jobs in the European, EO services, downstream sector. This will require efforts to ensure that European industry is well-placed firstly to deliver the Copernicus Services1, so gathering the appropriate skills and competences, and secondly to exploit these in new markets for commercial and export customers.

Only by exploiting and continuously developing the skills and competences in the private sector can the programme targets be met. However, industry is concerned that the procurement approach for the Copernicus Services will not fully enable this to happen and considers that, unless appropriate policies are put into place, the opportunity may be limited or even lost.

The nature and scale of the services to be procured are unlike any other procurement action in Europe. The mix of European scale and national interest will be a challenge to manage as will be the interests of the various stakeholders including industry. The European Commission intends to delegate procurement authority and budget to a number of distinct “Entrusted Entities”, all of which have a different set of skills, technical competences and budgetary situations. Without clear guidance and imposed rules, it seems unlikely that the private sector, and especially SME’s, will become fully engaged and able to grow the downstream business sector.

A first priority is to ensure that the procurement of the Copernicus services can take benefit from all European strengths; in both public and private sectors as well as in academia. Each actor has an appropriate role to play and by doing so can help deliver on the EU objectives. The rules by which Copernicus Services will be procured will have a strong influence over the exploitation potential of the programme. Without specific measures to enable companies to lead and to participate to the maximum extent possible in the supply of Copernicus services, the necessary skills and competences will not be available to allow industry to develop and access new markets.

Hence, we consider that measures still need to be taken to harmonise the procurement of Copernicus Services by the Entrusted Entities which will act under the responsibility of the European Commission. We are strongly concerned to see that the key arrangements, i.e. the delegation agreements and the framework through which they will operate, are appropriately defined to maximise the commercial service provision and fully enable commercial exploitation. We believe that a partnership approach with industry is necessary and we are fully ready to work to achieve this. In this paper, we address the issues and make some specific proposals for measures which should be taken to overcome the barriers.

Position Paper