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On 17 September, 38 sub-Saharan immigrants, including three babies and eight women, were rescued from a boat adrift on the high seas to the south of Motril (Granada, Spain). According to Salvamento Marítimo (The Maritime Rescue Service) the search for the boat was “complicated” due to the huge area to be scanned. Nonetheless the SAGRES program, used in conjunction with satellite images, was decisive in finding the tiny boat with the immigrants in distress.

The GMV-coordinated, FP7, maritime safety project called SAGRES (Service Activations for GRowing Eurosur Success) supports the pre-operational test and deployment of high-time critical, intelligence-driven maritime surveillance components.

This particular activation (as one of the last activations within the project) was planned in advance with cooperation with Frontex, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders, defining a limited area within the Mediterranean Sea for a limited period of time: 16-09-2014 evening. The activation defined a set of exercises with the aim to further tests the capability of Earth Observation (EO) imagery to support maritime surveillance within specific operational environments.

The challenging trial was organized with the cooperation of Spanish authorities where it was planned to involve a patrolling vessel in the West Mediterranean Sea. The goal was to detect a small target (non-metallic target with a length < 10 m) by combining the processing of EO images with cooperative reporting streams.

However, on 16.09.2014 afternoon an urgent call to search for a boat with migrants was received and the asset was forced to join the mission.

Luckily, the operational search zone was not far away from the area designed for the trial. Thus, SAGRES and Frontex decided to use the ordered image, a Synthetic Aperture Radar image acquired by the RADARSAT2 satellite sensor in Ultra Fine mode with 3 m of resolution, to support the mission.

The image was processed in less than 3 h from the acquisition time. The ship detection report pointed out the presence of a potential target of interest cruising to the North. The report was immediately passed to Frontex, who passed away to the Spanish Authorities. The coordinates of the detection were used to delimitate the search zone and this permitted the location of the boat on the morning of 09.17 ,5 NM far away from the position reported by the satellite image.

Thanks to the rapid intervention of the Spanish authorities, the 38 migrants (including 8 women and 3 babies) on-board were rescued and saved their lives.

The contribution of SAGRES has been essential as the EO-based ship detection permitted reducing the initial huge area and this eased the search mission. This success case shows how EO technology can support high time critical maritime surveillance and how this technology can be used to save lives at sea.

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Gisat has been contracted by the Czech State Agricultural Intervention Fund to deliver services related to remote sensing control of agricultural subsidies in the Czech Republic in 2014.

The control is done according to the EU guidelines using high resolution and very high resolution satellite imagery. Selected subsidy schemes and environmental measures are subject of the control. The contract covers the whole control process: orthorectification and processing of the satellite and airborne data; photo-interpretation of satellite and aerial images with the use of LPIS data; database processing of the results and final map compilation. The project also includes providing of consultancy services related to the on-the-spot control implementation and cross-compliance issues.

The winning of this prestigious tender confirms our leading position among the national EO based service providers. At the same time it will allow us to continue in close collaboration with the Czech administration in the domain of agriculture monitoring with remote sensing.

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GeoVille is pleased to ANNOUNCE THE PUBLIC RELEASE OF THE Water Observation and Information System (WOIS) which can be downloaded after registration here

The WOIS provides a significant capacity to produce a comprehensive suite of water related information products based on a variety of satellite input sources. Development and Implementation of the WOIS in Africa was funded by the ESA Data User Element (DUE) project TIGER NET within the TIGER Initiative.

The recent publication in the Special Remote Sensing Issue on Earth Observation for Water Resource Management in Africa provides the scientific background and in depth insights of the various processing chains.

Providers of logistics services face a lot of challenges: fierce competition, relentless cost pressures, ever-increasing energy prices, stringent emissions legislation and the requirement for accurately-measured carbon footprints.

This can put a lot of strain on such organisations, so in order to provide assistance in this respect the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB Schenker is developing a transport and logistics solution together with T-Systems and GAF AG. This delivers real-time data based on satellite navigation, earth observation and satellite communication technologies.
The project is funded jointly by the European Space Agency‘s Integrated Application Promotion (IAP) programme (http://artes-apps.esa.int/) and Deutsche Telekom.

Cutting CO2 emissions and saving fuel
The main objective of the solution that is being developed is to help drivers achieve an eco-friendly driving style. Rapid near real-time feedback allows the drivers to adapt their behaviour accordingly.
A smartphone app makes use of GPS to capture information about location, speed, acceleration and driving times, including breaks and stoppages. Based on the specific freight, vehicle weight and predefined reference profiles, this data can be used to calculate the precise fuel consumption, which is then integrated into the parameters for the route. The logistics company and the driver immediately receive the same metrics via a T-Systems server.

To enhance the accuracy of the results, GAF is implementing high-quality Digital Elevation Models based on satellite earth observation images to achieve an even more precise calculation of CO2 emissions and fuel consumption.
This leads to reductions in emissions and also saves fuel, which helps to reduce the overall costs for the providers of logistics services. An additional benefit is that an efficient driving style also reduces the amount of maintenance required on the vehicles and thereby helps to increase their periods of active usage.

Tracing and Tracking
So is the driver forecasted to arrive early, on time or late? Using information from satellites, the solution provides information at all times about the exact location of the driver and the vehicle’s load, thereby enabling dispatchers back in the office to provide accurate updates to customers. Furthermore, interruptions to the journey are clearly recorded. Have perishable goods been kept refrigerated? Is the vehicle at a secure, guarded parking area or a remote road-side lay-by? The technology provides the head office with an around-the-clock bird’s-eye-view of all potential threats and total cost transparency.

Tracking of humanitarian transports
A satellite communication channel will be available in particular for the provision of humanitarian logistics services. This will help the logistics provider when entering disaster affected areas that lack mobile telephone communications and in which route infrastructure may also be damaged. Earth observation data can be used to identify destroyed infrastructure and traversable routes.

In the case of shipments with high security requirements, a satellite-based communications network can also be used instead of the terrestrial network to ensure a reliable tracking. An example of such a case is the transportation of valuable goods.

GAF_PR_Efficiency_Management_09-2014.pdf

A European consortium headed by GAF AG has been contracted by the European Environment Agency (EEA) to implement the latest element of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service’s Local Component: the Riparian Zones Project.

The project team mainly consists of four experienced European service providers: GAF AG (Germany), INDRA (Spain), Metria (Sweden) and GeoVille (Austria). The consortium has signed a 3.7 million € framework service contract with the EEA and conducted a successful project kick-off in Copenhagen in July 2014.

As part of the Copernicus Initial Operations, the consortium will provide mapping, modelling and consultancy services to EEA in order to provide a consistent and very-high resolution delineation and characterisation of the riparian zones of major and medium-sized rivers for most of Europe and Turkey (i.e. the 39 EEA member and cooperating countries) for the first time ever. Based on optical 2.5m spatial resolution satellite imagery, the consortium will produce three separate riparian data layers by mid-2015:

  • very-high-resolution land cover/land use mapping within a riparian buffer zone;
  • fine-scale spatial delineation of riparian zones based on a GIS modelling approach, incorporating various geo-information layers and the latest scientific research;
  • and delineation of small green linear elements as part of the European green infrastructure.

Additionally, the consortium will provide consultancy services to EEA in relation to these three data layers.By focusing on riparian zones, which are among the most sensitive ecosystem and biodiversity hotspots in Europe, the project will enable a systematic assessment of freshwater ecosystems and riverine habitats. It will serve as a complement to the pan-European Land component (CORINE Land Cover (CLC) and High-Resolution Layers (HRL) on land cover characteristics) and to the other Local Component project, i.e. the Urban Atlas. Among other things, it will also provide support to the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 and the related Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) as well as the associated green infrastructure and restoration objectives, the Habitats and Birds Directives, the Water Framework Directive and the European Floods Directive.

In this project, GAF AG is responsible for the overall project management as well as for creating the very-high resolution land cover / land use product for Central Europe and the British Isles. Additionally, the company will be implementing the Riparian Zones Delineation for all EEA-39 countries and be responsible for consultancy coordination and overall quality management.

GAF Riperian

French space company Arianespace is scheduled to launch an Indian earth observation satellite (EOS) on December 4. It would contain an Electronic Intelligence System (ELINT) package that will boost New Delhi’s capability to collect strategic intelligence in the neighbourhood.

While the ELINT satellite launched from French Guiana will act as a force multiplier for India’s National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), India has also asked French nuclear reactor supplier Areva to consider joining hands with Indian private sector to build steel pressure vessel forgings in order to supply pressurised reactors for 9,900 MW Jaitapur power plant in Maharashtra.

Both the issues were discussed at the 26th India-France Strategic Dialogue meeting on October 9 with Jacques Audibert, diplomatic advisor to French President Francois Hollande, meeting National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Audibert also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi the next day.

At the meeting, both sides decided to speed up the Rafale Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal but a India-France proposal to produce short range surface to air missile was shot down by the Indian Air Force, which appeared to be in favour of DRDO developed Akaash medium range surface to air missile.

India and France have deepened cooperation in high technology, nuclear, space and intelligence areas. The ELINT satellite project was moved through NTRO in 2011 with both sides freezing technical classifications and parameter in 2013 strategic dialogue.

The SR-SAM project was cleared by previous UPA-2 government in July 2011 and Defence Acquisition Council in December 2012. Both MMRCA and SR-SAM projects are worth billions of dollars.

With Japan playing hardball on signing the bilateral civilian nuclear deal, any hope of the steel pressure vessels to house Areva reactors from Japan Steel Works is ruled out.

As the designs of the steel vessels belong to Areva, New Delhi has asked France to consider tying up with Indian high technology companies so that the steel forgings can be made within India.

Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited and Areva are partners in the Jaitapur nuclear plant. In 2010, both companies signed an agreement to supply first set of two third generation European Pressurised Reactors and 25 years worth of nuclear fuel.

NASA inaugurated a new era of research for the International Space Station (ISS) as an Earth observation platform following the successful installation and activation of the ISS-RapidScat science instrument on the outposts exterior.

The ISS Rapid Scatterometer, or ISS-RapidScat, is NASA’s first research payload aimed at conducting near global Earth science from the stations exterior and will be augmented with others in coming years.

RapidScat is designed to monitor ocean winds for climate research, weather predictions and hurricane monitoring.

The 1280 pound (580kilogram) experimental instrument is already collecting its first science data following its recent power-on and activation at the station.

“Its antenna began spinning and it started transmitting and receiving its first winds data on Oct.1,” according to a NASA statement.

The first image from RapidScat was released by NASA on Oct. 6, shown below, and depicts preliminary measurements of global ocean near-surface wind speeds and directions.

The remote sensing instrument uses radar pulses to observe the speed and direction of winds over the ocean for the improvement of weather forecasting.

“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 RapidScat Project Scientist Ernesto Rodriguez of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, which built and manages the mission.

“We have been very lucky that within the first days of operations we have already been able to observe a developing tropical cyclone.

“The quality of these data reflect the level of testing and preparation that the team has put in prior to launch,” Rodriguez said in a NASA statement. “It also reflects the quality of the spare QuikScat hardware from which RapidScat was partially assembled.”

RapidScat, payload was hauled up to the station as part of the science cargo launched aboard the commercial SpaceX Dragon CRS-4 cargo resupply mission that thundered to space on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sept. 21.

Dragon was successfully berthed at the Earth-facing port on the stations Harmony module on Sept 23, as detailed – here.

It was robotically assembled and attached to the exterior of the station’s Columbus module using the station’s robotic arm and DEXTRE manipulator over a two day period on Sept 29 and 30.

Ground controllers at Johnson Space Center intricately maneuvered DEXTRE to pluck RapidScat and its nadir adapter from the unpressurized truck section of the Dragon cargo ship and attached it to a vacant external mounting platform on the Columbus module holding mechanical and electrical connections.

The nadir adapter orients the instrument to point at Earth.

The couch sized instrument and adapter together measure about 49 × 46 × 83 inches (124 × 117 × 211 centimeters).

Engineers are in the midst of a two week check out process that is proceeding normally so far. Another two weeks of calibration work will follow.

Thereafter RapidScat will begin a mission expected to last at least two years, said Steve Volz, associate director for flight programs in the Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, at a prelaunch media briefing at the Kennedy Space Center.

RapidScat is the forerunner of at least five more Earth science observing instruments that will be added to the station by the end of the decade.

The second Earth science instrument, dubbed CATS, could be added by year’s end.

The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) is a laser instrument that will measure clouds and the location and distribution of pollution, dust, smoke, and other particulates in the atmosphere.

CATS is slated to launch on the next SpaceX resupply mission, CRS-5, currently targeted to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fl on Dec. 9.

This has been a banner year for NASA’s Earth science missions. At least five missions will be launched to space within a 12 month period, the most new Earth-observing mission launches in one year in more than a decade.

ISS-RapidScat is the third of five NASA Earth science missions scheduled to launch over a year.

NASA has already launched the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, a joint mission with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in February and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) carbon observatory in July 2014.

Ken Kremer
Source

(October 2014) ‘The Size and Health of the UK Space Industry’ reveals that the sector continues to soar and is currently worth £11.3 billion to the UK economy, growing at over 7% per year, employing over 34,000 people and supporting a further 65,000 jobs in other sectors.

Speaking at the Royal Aeronautical Society Strategic Choices for Space – President’s Conference 2014, Minister for Universities, Science and Cities Greg Clark announced the publication of the report and said:

The UK space sector makes an impressive contribution to the UK economy and has consistently done so over the last decade, virtually doubling in size in financial terms since 2006. These figures show that the UK is well placed to meet our ambitious target of 10 per cent of the global space market by 2030. Co-operation between the public and private sector is the foundation for this continued success.

‘The Size and Health of the UK Space Industry’ allows the UK Space Agency to track the progress of the sector and serves as a metric against its ambitions and the targets set in the Space Innovation and Growth Strategy. The latest figures reflect well on the past two years of strategic investment by government in key technological innovations.

Through strategic investment, improved policy and stronger collaboration in areas with the potential for further growth and high economic return, The UK Space Agency is working to build a supportive environment for the commercial space sector and enabling the UK to fully exploit a growing market for space data and technologies.

The size and health of the UK space industry report 2014

***

Introduction

Since 1992, the UK Space Agency1 has periodically surveyed organisations in the UK that supply, or make use of, the space sector. The objectives of the survey are to:
• establish the industry’s general size and health;
• inform industry and the Government of the day
• promote the UK space sector overseas;
• provide an input into the formulation of UK space policy; and
• track progress towards the policy objectives (e.g. The Space
Innovation and Growth Strategy 2014-30).

The series of studies, entitled the Size and Health of the UK Space Industry, provide a historically consistent series of observations on the state of the UK space industry, and thus represent a unique resource for assessing developments in the industry. The UK Space Agency commissioned London Economics to conduct the 2014 version of the study, covering 2011/12 and 2012/13, and this document presents an Executive Summary of the main findings.

The study has historically focused on the space industry, split into upstream and downstream segments. However, reflecting a growing belief that this definition of the industry is too narrow to capture the sector’s future growth, particularly with reference to space-enabled applications, the 2014 analysis reflects three discrete segments of the space economy: upstream space industry (infrastructure and technology), downstream space industry (direct space services) and the wider space economy (space-enabled value- added applications).

The cornerstone of the research is an industrial survey, sent to over a thousand organisations in the UK. Reflecting the expanded space economy definition, the invitee count was increased substantially with a key focus on the industry supply chain (e.g. microelectronics firms) and the wider space economy (e.g. space-enabled value-added service providers). The survey results were supplemented by additional targeted stakeholder consultations, desk-based research of publicly available data sources and a statistical model to estimate inputs for non-responding organisations. The survey questionnaire was based on previous years’ surveys and thus ensures a high level of comparability over time – a crucial feature of the study.

With the expanded list of invitees, the definition of the space economy differs from that of the space industry used in previous editions of the study. The quantitative results presented in the report pertain to the space industry to preserve the consistency of the historical data series. 464 invited organisations were deemed to be in the space industry.

The estimates are based on 303 companies, which either – responded to the survey, were estimated from previous responses, use of statutory annual accounts, or as part of the group of organisations that fall below the statutory reporting threshold. The UK space industry ranges from international market leaders with subsidiaries all over the world, to UK subsidiaries of international companies, on to start-ups and small enterprises.

The pre-operational marine environment monitoring service developed in the context of the Copernicus programme has produced 25-year and 60-year reanalyses of the Mediterranean Sea three-dimensional essential state variables.

The corresponding products will be presented at the occasion of a side-meeting to the 7th EuroGOOS conference, on Monday 27 October. This side-meeting will provide a valuable opportunity to demonstrate the methodology for reanalysis generation, explore its potential in reconstructing the 3D state of the ocean and illustrate different applications stemming out of the reanalyses.

Read more…

(Source MyOcean)

Named after the Latin word for rain cloud, the Nimbus satellites were a series of seven Earth-observation satellites launched over a 14-year time period from 1964 to 1978, one of which did not achieve orbit. In total, the satellites provided Earth observations for 30 years and collectively carried a total of 33 instruments, including ozone mappers, the Coastal Zone Color Scanner instrument and microwave and infrared radiometers.

“Nimbus is the granddaddy of the current Earth-observing fleet,” said Piers Sellers, deputy director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate and acting director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“When you look at all the incredible science we are doing from Earth orbit right now, you can trace it back to Nimbus. By any measure – scientific, engineering, operational, economic, human – the program was a smashing success and a huge return on investment.”

These satellites revolutionized weather forecasting to accomplish accurate long-term forecasts and demonstrated location and related search-and-rescue technology. They provided some of the first consistent global measurements of Earth, such as sea measurements, oceanic plant life and the ozone layer.

“There’s never been quite another program like Nimbus in terms of a such a dedicated series of satellites and instruments, pushing the boundaries of our technology and expanding our scientific understanding of our world,” said Gene Feldman, oceanographer at Goddard.

Nimbus paved the way for future Earth-observing systems such as Aqua, Terra, Aura, Landsat, Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS), Tropical Rain Measuring Mission and many more. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first Nimbus satellite’s launch in 1964, NASA takes a look at some, but certainly not all, of the “first-ever” observations from the Nimbus satellites.

Nimbus Firsts

+ First to provide daylight and night-time pictures of intense hurricane clouds viewed from space, which initiated the use of satellite technology to provide hurricane warnings.

+ First to measure ozone columns and profiles from space, which led to the first confirmation of the ozone hole and the documentation of the recurrence of the hole every year during the southern-hemisphere springtime.

+ First to provide quantitative data on the size of volcanic eruptions by measuring sulfur dioxide, a unique tracer of volcanic eruptions. This led the path for other volcanic ash cloud tracking instruments such as the Ozone Monitoring Instrument.

+ First to provide extensive global observations of spectral signatures of ice that indicate the age of the sea ice and first to provide snow depth and snow accumulation rates over the Arctic and Antarctica. This paved the way for other NASA satellites such as Aqua and Terra.

+ First to provide global, direct observations of the amount of solar radiation entering and exiting Earth’s system. This helped to confirm and improve the earliest climate models and laid the groundwork for Cloud and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites and now on Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite.

+ First to create a map of global distribution of photosynthetic organisms, such as phytoplankton, in the world’s ocean from space. This helped scientists understand the ocean’s role in the exchange of carbon around the world and led the way for missions such as SeaWiFS, Aqua and Terra.

+ First microwave devices to distinguish rain over ocean and between snow and ice in polar areas.

+ First capability to globally measure the temperature in a planetary atmosphere quantitatively and qualitatively from space. This paved the way for instruments on NASA’s Voyager, Cassini, Aqua and Terra.

+ First to map topography and Earth’s mineral resources from space, which laid the groundwork for similar instruments on Earth-observing mapping satellites such as Landsat.

+ First satellite to reveal an ice-free opening in the Antarctica ice pack. This patch of open water, called a polynya, appeared during the winters of 1974-76 in the Weddell Sea and has not been observed since.

+ First meteorological satellites to provide day and night local area coverage every 24-hours, repeated at the same time daily. This sun-synchronous orbit became the norm for satellites.

+ First solar panels on a satellite that track the sun during the daylight portion of an orbit, an advancement adapted to many of today’s satellites. This sun-tracking arrangement allows the solar panels to harness more power than if the solar cells were fixed to the spacecraft body.

+ Demonstrated the first technology that allowed satellites to track movements of people, animals and items on Earth. This paved the way for GPS technology and international search and rescue satellite-aided tracking programs.

For more in-depth information about the Nimbus series’ contributions to earth science research please go here