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This quarter, I turn again to Copernicus. Recently, we published an EARSC position paper looking at the industry prospects to participate in the supply of the Copernicus services. Overall, Copernicus presents a unique opportunity for the European industry to develop its business by leveraging the public investment in the programme hence creating jobs and economic growth but a number of concerns on the procurement process have been expressed by the industry which we have captured in our paper.
We consider that the key to success is an appropriate participation of industry in the supply of the services and to maintain a strong competitive environment. But, for this to happen, a number of conditions will need to be met which are discussed in our paper. Both of these objectives unfortunately seem to be at risk with the current approach.

In our paper we promote “A new public-private partnership; working together” since we consider that the strengths of both private sector and public bodies can be harnessed to deliver for Europe. By “deliver” we mean two things; firstly, to ensure that the European policy makers get the best information possible and secondly, to ensure that the programme can deliver economic growth through the downstream sector.

To achieve this will require a political recognition that industry should be engaged wherever possible and an open approach where industry views are listened to! We recognise that compared to the US this is not always easy in a Europe of 30 states (EU 28 plus 2 ESA) but we shall need to find ways to exploit this diversity as a strength and not cede to it as a weakness.

One concern is that the competition will become distorted through over-participation of public bodies in the supply of services. We see two different situations. Firstly, where Member States have designated agencies for certain tasks eg environment or civil protection, and which are expected to be the channel for generating/delivering national services. Secondly, where a PSB through their public task, has developed the technical skills and competences which they wish to offer in the supply of Copernicus services. In both cases, the national body will distort the competition unless they are open to work with any potential industrial bidder.

A second concern is that through the participation in a service supply, new products and services are developed which duplicate similar ones already available commercially. I already hear of a case where a company has been told that they should supply a service until it becomes available for free through the Copernicus services. Similarly, there are instances where companies have invested in developing a new product only to see it being offered to Copernicus by a public body.

Both concerns discourage industry from investing in either R&D or commercialisation. Indeed, the latter may not be possible if public bodies make products available free of charge. But to be clear, this does not mean that the free and open policy is wrong – quite the contrary, we consider that it is fundamentally sound – but that the boundary of what industry can do relative to the public body is neither clear nor frozen. This is the issue which we now face where there is a strong possibility that investments being made by Europe in the Copernicus Services will not deliver the expected growth in jobs in the downstream sector.

To overcome this risk, some of the specific measures which we feel must be taken are:

  • Harmonised procurement approaches, rules and conditions across all the services including especially a dedicated emphasis on service quality rather than on pure cost.
  • Transparency between the stakeholders and in particular scope for discussion and negotiation of the service provision for an efficient and effective supply.
  • Consideration of the commercial situation in determining the portfolio of products within any particular Copernicus service.
  • Steps to ensure that the possibility for competitive procurement is maintained and to avoid that de-facto monopoly supply chains become established. This requires an open bidding process especially in the participation of public sector bodies.
  • A good understanding of “who does what” between the industry and the public sector bodies. To understand the boundary is extremely important to enable industry to invest in the provision of new services.

One measure which could help in this last point is to develop a Research Roadmap for EO services.

Last week I participated in a workshop which looked at how to stimulate the user uptake of Copernicus services. Overwhelmingly, the message coming from geo-spatial companies and users was “What can we do with the data? Where can we get hold of it? And who can we talk to about it?” An awareness campaign is clearly necessary and it might be considered that the EO companies which can benefit from the free Sentinel data would be out there selling it. That they are clearly not – or we would not have heard this very strong message – in my view is down to this uncertainty. If having promoted a product they are told, yes but we expect to get this free from Copernicus, they will not be active. For the future success of the programme, it is vital that we clarify the boundary between what public bodies will do and where industry can anticipate doing business.

by Geoff Sawyer
EARSC Secretary General

ScanEx RDC will perform monitoring of the condition and use of land on the Russky Island by the request of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography. Activities execution date is November 1, 2014.

Monitoring will be carried out using Earth observation satellite images followed by a thematic processing of the received data. It is expected that satellite monitoring will help improve the efficiency of authorities in charge of the state land supervision.

The goal of the project is to get updated information on the status and use of land on the island. The data will be used to evaluate different types of natural and human-induced hazards, to carry out activities on public land supervision of the land use for the intended purpose, to perform targeted audits of land laws abidance; this data is also to provide up-to-date information on the status of land of the island to state and local municipal government agencies.

A number of activities will be realized under this project, including:

  • collection of archived material on the status and use of land
  • analysis of cartographic material and other data on land plots
  • preparation of maps based on fresh high resolution Earth remote sensing data
  • definition of land plots status and land use types
  • identification of areas not used for its intended purpose or where measures are not taken to bring the land to a condition suitable for the intended purpose
  • detection of land law violations and mapping of such areas
  • compilation of the analytical reports
  • training of the Primorie Territory Rosreestr employees

Starting from 2006, a tremendous amount of work was carried out on the island to create the infrastructure for tourism and sports, to build modern facilities for business and cultural life. Since in the long run it is the Russky Island that is supposed to become a growth point for the entire Far East Region and a major center of international cooperation with the Asia-Pacific Region countries, the control of execution of strategic plans of the Russian President and Government is an important component for the effective accomplishment of the objectives.

Source

Satellite remote sensing may support the monitoring of water quality during dredging activities for the installation of new off-shore infrastructures.

The use of traditional monitoring techniques (sampling at sea, measures, laboratory analysis) are certainly effective, but they presents logistical and operational inconveniences and long processing times, often incompatible with the need to obtain in real-time the information collected. Furthermore, field observations and measurement, although frequent, are not able to provide a complete and exhaustive spatial answer to describe all the phenomena in progress.

It integrates traditional methods with daily collections of high-resolution satellite images over the area of interest. All the monitoring phases are accurately planned: the programming of the satellite acquisitions, the data collection, the ingestion and processing. Within a few hours this method provides accurate and validated information, useful for the quantitative and spatial definition of the entity the phenomenon of dispersion of sediments during dredging operations.

See also the presentation by SAIPEM SpA and Planetek Italia at Coast ESONDA Expo 2014
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Iran, October 6, 2014: Delivering his address at the World Space Week in Tehran on October 4, Deputy Head of Iran Space Agency (ISA) Hamid Fazeli announced that Iran plans to launch three new satellites with indigenously-designed carriers into the space in the near future.


“The launching of satellites such as Sharif Sat, Zafar (Triumph), Tolou (Sunrise) and Pars with powerful locally-designed carriers in the near future is on the agenda,” said Hamid Fazeli on Sunday.

Zafar is a monitoring satellite, which will be sent into a geostationary orbit that is a circular orbit around 36,000 kilometers (22,320 miles) above the Earth’s equator. The satellite will reportedly have a lifespan of one year and six months, and will capture images and transmit them to stations on earth. Tolou satellite will also carry out remote sensing and topography missions, and will travel in an orbit of 500 kilometres above the Earth’s equator. Fazeli also noted that Iran is among the five emerging states active in this sector and that many countries are following Iran’s lead in their space programmes. He added that mastering the technology for geosynchronous satellites, localising, designing and launching of telecommunications and remote-sensing satellites as well as establishing launch pads and telemetry stations are among other priorities of the ISA. Source: PressTV

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Geospatial technology is widely used across the length and breadth of various sectors in Germany. Dr Peter Volk, CEO, GAF, a European provider for earth observation and geoinformation solutions, talks about the company’s projects and future directions

How is geospatial technology helping in growth and development projects in Germany?

Geospatial technology is widely accepted as an economic driver throughout public and private sectors, and its is increasingly contributing to the domestic growth and export markets. The EU and specifically EU programmes namely INSPIRE, Copernicus and Galileo are already delivering growth repercussions to an even wider community within Europe, and of course in Germany. The use of geospatial data, software and services has become a real commodity here in the past few years. A good measure is the growth of geospatial service companies in Germany that work in this sector and GAF is one of them.

Which are the major projects you are involved in?

GAF has experienced across-the-board expansion along the geoinformation value chain. Through our former subsidiary Euromap — now an integral part of the company — we have delivered pan-European datasets of Indian origin to the European data users within the Copernicus programme. A good example for a fruitful Indian-EU-German cooperation! We are also involved in Copernicus value-added projects and services in the area of land, emergency response and atmosphere. On the spatial software side, we work with customised Esri, ERDAS and PCI Geomatics as our workhorses but also with own software products (like GAFmap) or OS-based technologies.

GAF also deals with complex consulting services where geospatial components make up between 5 and 50% of the project. Here, we are active in various sectors such as mining, agriculture, environment, REDD and, regional planning to name a few, across many countries around the globe. Important to us are a significant number of projects for military and security customers, ranging from data and processing to analysis and software services. It is this mix that makes us special and enables us to transfer a development from one sector for the benefit of another.

What has been the progress on the ground?

There have been some remarkable developments like the wide recognition of VHR and SVHR (very-high-resolution and super-very-high-resolution) data from Earth observation satellites, capable of intruding in some airborne data domains. Spaceborne SAR and optical sensors are capable of providing uniform and detailed DEMs. Good examples include the DLR/Airbus developed World-DEM Programme and GAF’s Euromaps-3D product, which use the excellent data provided by ISRO’s P5 Cartosat system. LiDAR and UAV technology associated software solutions have just boosted a plethora of daily real-time planning and monitoring applications, which are now, for example, under consideration for operational use in time-critical emergency management projects. Advances have been made on the software side too. GIS and image processing COTS packages have converged and have reported growth, besides the wish to have focused, easy-to-use solutions which are often based on open source technology. Most interesting has been the development of service level agreements requiring rapid reaction in data procurement and analysis, sometimes up to an 365/7/24 scheme, such offerings can only be done when one has a critical number of excellent trained and motivated employees.

What are the challenges that a private company/industry faces in Germany?

Of course cost and budgets, though Germany does not have the highest labour cost in the EU, but the level is definitely higher than in other advancing and advanced economies. As private industry we have to offer something special, we have to be even more innovative, a step ahead technically, and put emphasis on the highest quality standards or fast turnaround through outstanding project management. The geospatial industry in Germany, like the other industrial service sectors, is facing competition from public and semi-public institutions. With increasing budget constraints, universities and research establishments are forced to tap into the grey areas of pilot and operational projects, or even service level contracts. Here, it needs the good will and constant communication to find solutions.

What is your opinion about the availability of manpower resources and skill development in Germany?

Education level of geospatial experts here is good. In the powerhouse regions like Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg etc. we have basically full employment and to find excellent people there is difficult. Here we have the possibility of looking in regions that are not so endowed with economic progress, or to activate recruiting assistance in other EU countries through our human resources department within the Telespazio Group. When it comes to spatial software architects we require highly specialised staff and there is a shortage of them. It is also unfortunate that the geospatial
industry does not yet offer attractive salaries, in comparison to the financial or automotive sector. We have to instead offer a supportive and family-like environment where staff is happy to go every day. This is the recipe which many successful firms in Germany follow.

What is your opinion about the German geospatial data policy? Do you think government policies have been encouraging?

Yes, definitely. In Germany, the federal and local policies are supporting the use of geospatial technology not only within the framework of EU triggered programmes, but also by national initiatives like application driven research and geospatial infrastructures by DLR, the German Aerospace Establishment. Currently, there are five or more federal ministries involved in EO activities. This fragmentation is causing problems. Also, there is no uniform pricing and licensing policy for very high-resolution data. Though geospatial adoption in Germany is considered as advanced, there is still a lot of work to do.

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Bremen/Munich, September 1, 2014. OHB System AG, Bremen, and Erwin Kayser-Threde GmbH, Munich, have now merged under the name of OHB System AG. However, the Kayser-Threde logo will continue to be used for process control technology activities.

By taking this step, the parent company European technology specialist OHB AG is pooling its two subsidiaries’ capabilities and capacities. “Two outstanding companies in the space industry are today joining forces to become a satellite and payload systems specialist which will be assuming a new role in the European market on account of its scale and organizational structure,” says Marco Fuchs, the CEO of OHB AG and OHB System AG. “In this way, we will be able to leverage our own internal skills more effectively and thus operate with heightened efficiency and competitiveness. We will be benefiting from the resultant advantages as much as our customers will be,” Fuchs adds.

With their different skills, the two former affiliates had previously already been working jointly on major projects such as the MTG weather satellites and the EnMAP environmental satellite. Accordingly, the merger is a logical step to reinforce and optimize the joint activities on a sustained basis and to position the two sites for the challenges which they face in their operations.

The transaction is a merger of equals with key management functions and sustained recruitment and personnel development activities based at both sites. The new OHB System AG has a seven-strong management board comprising: Marco R. Fuchs (CEO), Dr. Fritz Merkle, Frank Negretti, Dr. Ingo Engeln, Kurt Melching, Andreas Lindenthal and Boris Penné. “The merger has been planned very carefully. With the organizational structures now in place, the next task at hand will be to complete the integration process swiftly over the next few months,” Fuchs adds.

One aspect of the realignment of OHB’s German satellite and payload business entails the combination of the two existing facilities in Munich at new central premises at the Oberpfaffenhofen space center near Munich. New offices are currently being built there to accommodate technical facilities which will allow OHB to assume responsibility for new and challenging projects. With the “topping-out” celebrated on July 23, 2014, the new building is scheduled for completion in mid 2015.

About OHB System AG
OHB System AG is one of the three leading space companies in Europe. It belongs to listed high-tech group OHB AG, where around 2,000 specialists and executives work on key European space programs. With two strong sites in Bremen and Munich and more than three decades of experience, OHB System specializes in high-tech solutions for space. These include low-orbiting and geostationary satellites for earth observation, navigation, telecommunications, science and space exploration as well as systems for manned space flight, aerial reconnaissance and process control systems.

Contact for media representatives:
Martin Stade
Head of Corporate Communications
Phone: +49 421 – 2020-620
Fax: +49 421 – 2020-9898
e-mail: pr@ohb.de

(August 2014) The innovative KSAT light network has been developed primarily for the rapidly emerging smallsat market. Offering significantly reduced service prices, the new network still retains the market leading characteristics of the existing higher specification KSAT large antenna network:

  • Unequalled geographical locations with the Arctic and Antarctic sites enabling polar orbiting satellite contacts on 26 out of 28 possible passes per 24 hours: KSAT pole-to-pole
  • Mid-latitude sites for low-inclination orbits and extremely low latency polar orbit downloads
  • Small aperture S- , X- and Ka-band capable antenna systems
  • Optical fiber data backhaul from all sites, except TrollSat (Antarctic) which uses a high-capacity satellite link
  • The entire network is operated from the KSAT Tromsø HQ Network Operations Center (TNOC)

Low cost – but not low quality: KSAT light antennas are deployed at existing KSAT sites with a proven and highly reliable, rugged and well maintained infrastructure. Customer interfaces, centralized through the Tromsø TNOC are handled by the same friendly and efficient, can-do staff that has managed to turn more than 65 government and commercial satellite operators worldwide into loyal and satisfied business partners.

KSAT scheduler:

Coinciding with the launch of KSAT light, a new web-based and interactive pass scheduling application is being rolled out. KSAT scheduler allows a customer to schedule his selected passes himself, choosing from a clear presentation of pass opportunities corresponding to his satellites’ TLEs and requiring no further action from that point on. The system will allow for late changes or scheduling of additional passes just hours before the event.

Rolf Skatteboe, KSAT CEO: ”A large part of KSAT’s current success is based on being close to our market, our customers and to be willing to go the extra mile to find a good solution for every one of them. It has become obvious that the market is changing with the emergence of operators and satellite designs that do not require the very high performance of the current network and who will trade some performance for significantly lower service prices. The KSAT light network currently being deployed is the result of discussions with a large number of smallsat customers and we are confident that it will fit the business plan requirements of this important market segment.”

KSAT (Kongsberg Satellite Services) is the world’s leading provider of polar orbiting satellite ground station services, currently involving in excess of 16 000 monthly satellite passes on behalf of more than 70 missions. Our ground station sites are ideally placed for low latency TT&C and data download with three near-polar stations at Svalbard and Tromsø (Arctic) and TrollSat (Antarctic) as well as four mid-latitude stations in Hartebeesthoek (South Africa), Mauritius, Dubai and Singapore. The sites are populated with a large number of antenna systems operating in the S, X, Ka and UHF frequency bands. All the stations are remotely operated from our Tromsø HQ control center and benefit from terrestrial fiber connections for fast and secure data backhaul to the customers (high-capacity GEO satellite connection from TrollSat).

For more information on KSAT Light please contact Stig-Are Thrana, tel. +47 922 18 304, mail stiga@ksat.no

(September 2014) A new Reseller Agreement was signed with Digital Globe, Inc. (DG) and European Space Imaging, GmbH (EUSI), granting KSAT access to all their earth observation satellites.

This Agreement enhances KSAT’s strategic partnership with Digital Globe and EUSI, and is important to KSAT, as a provider of Multi-Mission Services from a vast number of Earth Observation Satellites.

Contacts
Jan-Petter Pedersen: +47 776 00 260
Stein H. Støver: +47 776 00 284
Source

(September newsletter)

This issue features the:

  • MEOS™ Antenna – 5 m X/S/L band
  • Phase Two 26GHz Telemetry Receiver development
  • MEOS™ Sentinels / S-1 Collaborative Ground Station (CGS)
  • Near Real-Time SAR (NRTSAR)-Core
  • MEOS™ Capture HRTG Test capabilities

*nMEOS™ NAS – Network Attached Storage

in addition to the upcomming events, latest contracts, newest upgrades and latest information from Kongsberg Spacetec.

You will find it here

Cambridge, ON- September 30th, 2014—exactEarth today announced that it has been awarded a C$19.2 million contract by the Government of Canada to provide extensive advanced Satellite AIS data services.

This contract covers a period of 18 months and supersedes and significantly augments the existing AIS data services contract that had been in place since 2012 with the Canadian Space Agency and Department of National Defence. The superseded amount is C$1.8 million, making the net new order booking C$17.4M.

Under the new contract the full exactAIS® data service is made available to all Canadian government departments and is expected to be used for a wide range of applications including but not limited to wide-area maritime surveillance and security, customs and border protection, Arctic vessel traffic monitoring, fisheries and environment monitoring as well as Search and Rescue.

“We are very pleased that the Government of Canada has recognized the fundamental importance and value of AIS data to the management, surveillance, security and safety of global maritime traffic,” said Peter Mabson, President of exactEarth. “Since the Government of Canada first adopted the exactAIS® service in 2010 their usage has grown exponentially – both in terms of number of users and number of applications. This is not only indicative of the value provided by this service but is also a testament to the quality and reliability of the exactAIS® data service. exactEarth’s data service is currently being provided to more than 40 countries and we are committed to continuing to provide leadership in service quality and customer support to all of our customers around the world.”

About exactEarth Ltd.

exactEarth, based in Cambridge, Ontario, is a data services company providing the most advanced information on global maritime traffic available today. Our premium service, exactAIS, delivers an unrivalled view of the recognized maritime picture at a global scale. Offering fully secure data in a variety of industry standard formats and delivery methods, exactEarth’s data provides real value for a wide range of operational maritime applications delivering operational efficiencies, enhancing security, safeguarding the environment, and assisting in saving lives. exactEarth is jointly owned by COM DEV International Ltd (TSX: CDV) and HISDESAT Servicios Estratégicos S.A. For more information, visit our website at www.exactearth.com.

About Hisdesat

Hisdesat was founded in 2001 as operator of government services by satellite to act primarily in the areas of defense, security, intelligence and foreign affairs. Since 2005, the company provides secure satellite communications to government agencies of different countries and is currently developing new satellites in two areas: Earth Observation and Information of the worldwide maritime traffic by satellite (AIS). More information: www.hisdesat.es

For further information:
Araceli Serrano
PR Communications Manager
Tel: +34 91 4490149
aserrano@hisdesat.es