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(6Oct2014, Spacenews) PARIS — Europe’s Sentinel-1A radar Earth observation satellite — the first in a series of environment-monitoring spacecraft built for the European Commission’s Copernicus program — on Oct. 6 entered routine operations with its data now freely available, the European Space Agency said.

Sentinel-1A was launched April 3 into a position that forced it to take slightly longer than expected to reach its final, polar low Earth operating orbit. As it climbed into position, the satellite made eight maneuvers to dodge space debris, ESA said.

The satellite is the first dedicated spacecraft for Copernicus, a multibillion-euro (multibillion-dollar) European Commission network of space and ground assets to monitor the environment.

The Copernicus satellites were developed by the 20-nation ESA. The Copernicus network, including the satellites, is owned by the European Commission, which is the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union.

ESA and the European Union are negotiating a legal framework under which Copernicus will be maintained and developed.

Sentinel 1A also will be the first test of Europe’s future European Data Relay Satellite Service, under which Sentinel Earth observation data is relayed, by laser optics, to telecommunications satellites in higher, geostationary to speed data delivery to users. Sentinel-1A will begin testing the data-relay element of the system in the coming weeks through Europe’s AlphaSat satellite.

AlphaSat’s main payload is for commercial L-band mobile communications services by Inmarsat of London. The satellite includes several ESA-furnished technology demonstration payloads, including the laser communications terminal.

Airbus Defence and Space will be operating the data-relay service commercially, pending successful laser-communications trials between Sentinel-1A and AlphaBus, and the signing of an ESA-Commission Copernicus agreement.

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Airbus Defence and Space and Exelis are teaming up to provide users of ENVI image analysis software an exclusive, limited time voucher offer for new imagery as well as easy access to the Airbus Defence and Space imagery archive through an application programming interface (API) plug-in integrated within Exelis’ ENVI software. The partnership between Airbus Defence and Space and Exelis helps to expand the network that makes imagery easily accessible to GIS (Geographic Information System) users.

The voucher program will offer a specific amount of Airbus Defence and Space imagery free of charge with any new ENVI license purchase, starting October 1, 2014. ENVI combines advanced spectral image processing and proven geospatial analysis technology with a modern, user-friendly interface. ENVI users will be able to integrate the Airbus Defence and Space imagery they receive through this program seamlessly into the ENVI software for use in applications such as feature extraction, change detection analysis, target identification, and much more.

The growing partnership has enabled Exelis and Airbus Defence and Space to develop and integrate an extension in ENVI software that directly connects to the Airbus Defence and Space imagery archive via an API. This allows ENVI users the opportunity to search and discover the Geo-Intelligence imagery archive directly within their ENVI environment. Users will have access to a full range of fresh optical and radar imagery including: 1.5m SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 and 50cm Pléiades data.

This agreement between Airbus Defence and Space and Exelis gives ENVI users easy access to a full range of fresh optical and radar imagery, providing them with more accurate results for their projects and helping them make better decisions. We are excited to see new opportunities developing with this growing partnership.”
Bernhard Brenner Head of the Geo-Intelligence Programme Line of Airbus Defence and Space

This integrated approach modernizes the way that people will discover data and access new imagery in conjunction with their existing imagery or GIS layers. By letting ENVI users easily identify and geo-locate thumbnail previews of available imagery within an area of interest without leaving the ENVI environment, our customers will save time and make better decisions in mission and project planning and execution.” Stuart Blundell General Manager at Exelis Visual Information Solutions

The voucher program will be available to new ENVI users as of October 1, 2014, and soon after all ENVI users will be able to search and discover the Airbus Defence and Space imagery archive. To learn more about this partnership, please stop by the Airbus Defence and Space booth #C3.049 or the Exelis booth #B3.036 at InterGEO, October 7-9, 2014 in Berlin.

DUBAI: The Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) announced that it has joined PanGeo, the first Global Alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators.

The alliance was announced at the annual Summit on Earth Observation Business, in its sixth edition, in Paris and is a coalition between EIAST, and three other parties, to share the products, data and images derived from their satellites.

The PanGeo Alliance currently includes 4 satellite entities from around the world: Dauria Aerospace (US/Russia), the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology EIAST, (UAE), Elecnor Deimos (Spain) and Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology (China).

During their participation Eng Salem Humaid Al Marri, assistant director-general for Scientific and Technical Affairs at EIAST, was a speaker at the summit and spoke on the regional focus session.

He shed light on EIAST’s strategy and the latest achievements of the institution including the launch of DubaiSat-1 and 2, and also updated the attendees on the KhalifaSat project, which will be the first to be manufactured by Emirati engineers in the UAE.

He also highlighted EIAST’s products and services, as well as its future projects.

Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, director-general of EIAST, said, “The Middle East and Africa have a genuine need for a large amount of satellite imagery to support their activities in energy, natural resources, the environment and infrastructure development.

EIAST will benefit from the PanGeo coalition as the Alliance will coordinate access to archives for all members, so that each member can see what is available and directly request images from the entire Alliance archive.

The PanGeo fleet is composed of 9 satellites currently in orbit: Perseus-M1, Perseus-M2, Dauria-DX-1, DubaiSat-1, DubaiSat-2, Deimos-1, Deimos-2, TH-1-01 and TH-1-02.

This fleet will be expanded to more than 30 satellites in the next years with the launch of KhalifaSat, of the Perseus-O and Auriga constellations, and with the expansion of the TH-1 constellation, plus satellites brought into the alliance by prospective new members that may join in the future.

The PanGeo fleet provides multispectral imagery in a wide range of resolutions (from 20m to 75cm per pixel), with a daily global imaging capability. Moreover, it provides AIS data for ship identification and maritime traffic control.

All PanGeo Alliance members can provide access to the full satellite fleet and product portfolio from all members.

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© EURISY Interview to Gediminas Vaitkus is the owner of Geomatrix UAB


Dr. Gediminas Vaitkus is the owner of Geomatrix UAB, a small Lithuanian company that has successfully participated in the development of Copernicus core services. It specialises in automated geospatial data processing. Now that the Sentinels are being launched, we asked Dr. Vaitkus about his point of view on the prospects the Sentinels bring for small and medium businesses.

Eurisy (EY): What are the main threats European SMEs are confronted with when it comes to making commercially viable geo-information products from Sentinel data?

Dr. G. Vaitkus (GV): I would like to call out three of them, though of course the situation is more complex than a 3-bullet point list.

  • 1. Stakeholder interests and resistance to changing from “traditional” (human photo-interpreted) geo-information products: Although the efficiency, objectivity, frequency and thematic variety of Copernicus products and services cause no doubts, the traditional mapping methods hold strong positions on an institutional level, with institutional users or even large service providers who are in a position of national monopoly. Annual expenses of the public sector for mapping products and services are certainly large enough for the traditional mapping lobbyists to defend their “economic interests”.
  • 2. European and national legislation and procurement policies are not in line with the most recent technological developments related to Copernicus. In many European countries legislation makes topographic mapping compulsory, focusing national funding on established priorities and methods, which leaves little room for innovation. This is actually the main problem for Copernicus service providers, more than technological competition with traditional mapping methods. Legislators do not seem to be in tune with those in charge of investing European money in innovative mapping methods, like those based on the use of satellite imagery. You would think that these questions of legislation and procurement policies should have preceded the implementation of Copernicus, but nowadays that seems to be an after-thought.
  • 3. Low accessibility of high quality multi-spectral imagery for the European service providers. This is a complex problem, including insufficient spatial resolution and spectral parameters of the imagery publicly available for the GMES/Copernicus initial operations, low revisit frequency (problems with cloud cover), high cost of very high resolution imagery (almost the same as aerial photos), etc. This problem is even worsened by on-line global imaging services like Google or Bing, which provide visualisations derived from very high resolution imagery for the general public globally and for free. So the result is that (1) the mainstream users have an extremely “populist” understanding of what EO technology really is and what information it can provide, at the same time being confident that they already have unlimited and free access to the best available EO technologies and (2) EO industry has serious problems trying to satisfy the expectations of the European (or national) institutional users in terms of high quality EO products and services with the EO data available for the real production. I do hope that Sentinel 2 will at least partially solve the latter problem, but the education of the general public still remains a serious issue for the Copernicus community at all levels.

EY: What about the bright side?

GV: There are a few reasons to remain hopeful.

  • 1. European SME capacity building. During the last years some European companies have indeed developed highly competitive technological capacities for EO services. And — surprisingly — the constraints of the European EO market (weak user community, low budgets, changing specifications, poor imagery, problems with many national projections, etc.), have actually pushed innovation and reinforced the competitiveness of European EO service providers on the global market! 5 years ago the FP7 GMES projects raised very ambitious (at that time) objectives to reduce the land-cover production costs by 20% compared to CORINE Land Cover production based on manual photo-interpretation, or even reduce the production cost down to 1-2 Euro/sq.km for ~10 “core” land cover classes. However, the actual production of GIO-Land layers was done for just a few cents/sq.km per layer — several times cheaper than the original expectations. Despite all the semantic issues, delays, diversity of national projections, inconsistency of EO imagery and other problems, the pan-European production was completed successfully by a collaborative effort of a large group of European companies, coordinated by the European Environment Agency. This achievement gives strong evidence of the competitiveness of the European EO industry and competences of public agencies.
  • 2. The promising prospect of access to global markets. Without exaggeration, European Copernicus service providers have indeed developed a capacity for serious competition on a global market. And, to be honest, the main reason why we (service providers) are so keen to finally have European EO imaging capacity (Sentinels) operating in full power is not because we expect a considerable boost of business opportunities in our own countries, but because we hope that EC will finally develop a political will to start acting as a global player on climate change, deforestation, desertification, water resources, food security and many other issues by launching large scale operational mapping and land/ocean monitoring services on a global scale, like US, Japan, China and other countries. Europe has no problem with innovation, technological capacity or even funding – I believe that with Copernicus services our main problem is lack of political will and coordination… But hopefully that is about to change.

EY: How representative do you think your view is of how SMEs in general perceive Copernicus’ opportunities?

GV: I’m not sure. My point of view – as one of a former scientist and current CEO of a micro-company competing for business in the field of EO services – is probably a pragmatic, business-like approach to the Copernicus programme. I do realise that on a European level this has been a very ambitious project on a larger time-scale than the one I consider, as a small business owner. Long preparation for the Copernicus operational phase through RTD projects demanded a considerable amount of investment and human resources from large EO service providers, but the overall level of GMES initial operations funding apparently didn’t meet expectations of the European EO industry. On the other hand, SMEs are operating on considerably lower level of expenses, therefore long-term Copernicus services and national downstreams provide attractive business opportunities for micro-companies and SMEs.

See more at

Flipping through online photo albums and social media collections of “selfies” is one thing, but when pictures can show land areas where millions of people live, it can put things in a completely different perspective – especially for scientists.

One of NASA’s newest tools for effective Earth observation has been orbiting our planet for more than 15 years. The International Space Station provides a constant, reliable perspective from which to record changes on the surface of Earth.

A new user-friendly online resource will provide images from a space station camera with nearly two years of images to share. The interface is a world map that links to thousands of images made by the ISERV camera: the International Space Station SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System. With the click of a mouse, the public can access the images with the ISERV Viewer.

People can view and download specific ISERV captures from a collection of more than 4,000 Earth images. ISERV scientists plan to expand the database to about 60,000 by summer 2015.

ISERV was installed as a technology testbed in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF) on the orbiting laboratory in January 2013 and is scheduled to be removed from operation in 2015. The camera receives and acts on commands from the ISERV team to acquire image data of specific areas of Earth’s surface as the space station passes overhead.

Images from ISERV are uploaded quickly to the web due to a new automated georeferencing capability, allowing imagery to be processed and published much faster. This is critically important when dealing with a disaster situation. Georeferencing is a process in which points in an image can be associated with geographic locations on a map. Developed by the ISERV ground team, the automated system uses the space station orbit and position data, along with the acquisition time information contained within each image to establish location on Earth and post it on the online map.

The ISERV camera is part of the SERVIR Earth observation program. For 10 years, SERVIR — an acronym meaning “to serve” in Spanish — has been a successful collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The program provides satellite-based Earth observation data and science applications to help developing nations in Central America, Africa and Asia assess environmental threats and the damage from — and their response to — natural disasters.

ISERV has demonstrated the value of Earth observation from the International Space Station for decision makers and disaster responders around the world,” says Burgess Howell, ISERV principal investigator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “This new image portal will provide public access to a vast array of images over much of the populated area of Earth.”

With ISERV, the SERVIR team has pioneered using the space station to support humanitarian relief and disaster support in underserved regions of the globe.

“Nearly 95 percent of the planet’s populated area is visible during the station’s orbit,” said William Stefanov, PhD., associate program scientist for Earth observations in the International Space Station Program Science Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Imagery captured by ISERV provides valuable information to the scientists and governments around the world to assist in environmental assessments and disaster situations.”

The SERVIR project operates via regional “hubs” in Nairobi, Kenya; Kathmandu, Nepal; and Panama City, Panama, and is coordinated at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The SERVIR hubs can task the ISERV system to image scenes of Earth’s surface in their regions of interest to address environmental issues and disasters.

Much as parents can look back to see how their child has changed over the years, scientists hope that the snapshots gathered by ISERV of land areas before and after environmental changes will improve future response to natural disasters.

For more information about SERVIR, visit the program website:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/servir
or
https://www.servirglobal.net/

Munich / Tianjin 24 September 2014 – ChinaRS Geoinformatics Co., Ltd. (ChinaRS) is partnering with CloudEO AG the provider of a unique geo collaboration platform. Objective of this cooperation is the worldwide provision of complementary geo data, software and services on a pay-per-use or revenue sharing basis. On September 5th the cooperation agreement was signed in Tianjin, China.

Dr. Ren Fuhu, CEO of ChinaRS, and Deputy Director of the Cloud Computing Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences says “We would like to provide all those who work with geo data and software with an easy and affordable remote sensing cloud service platform. Our new cooperation with CloudEO is a great endorsement for our users as Chinese companies will be able to use the software and services provided by CloudEO partners on a pay-per-use basis.”

Dr. Manfred Krischke, CEO of CloudEO summarizes “ChinaRS and CloudEO had the same business idea at the same time more than 20,000 kilometers away from each other. This is a perfect fit. Together we will become the new global force in the geo data market.”

At the National Annual Remote Sensing Conference from 20th to 22nd of September RSChina launched its new online store RSCloudMart – CloudEO services included. And the next cooperation steps are already fixed. CloudEO will set up an own infrastructure in China supported by ChinaRS.


About CloudEO

CloudEO – the unique portal for all those who create, interpret and use geodata. CloudEO offers to its customers a secure and highly scalable geo infrastructure to develop, produce and market geo services. It brings data, software and processing power together within a private cloud service and a certified hosting environment. Within CloudEO’s geo collaboration platform content providers, software developers, service providers and geodata users become partners within one ecosystem providing affordable geo services for commercial applications.
www.cloudeo-ag.com

About ChinaRS

ChinaRS was founded in 2007 by the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Tianjin Municipal Government to accelerate the transformation and industrialization of the technologies developed by RADI. The company is headquartered in Tianjin and has five subsidiaries respectively located in Tianjin City, Beijing City, and provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu and Hebei.
http://www.rscloudmart.com

Press Contact:
Dr. Sonja Sulzmaier
press@cloudeo-ag.com

[Via Satellite 09-25-2014] Spire, a fast-paced remote sensing company with roots in Silicon Valley, has leapfrogged from incubation just two years ago at Lemnos Labs into a multi-million dollar startup with four satellites in orbit. Formerly known as Nanosatisfi, the company recently raised $25 million in Series A funding, bringing the total amount raised to $29 million.

The fourth and most recent spacecraft from Spire, Lemur 1, launched aboard a Kosmotras Dnepr rocket this summer. Lemur 1 has validated Spire’s manufacturing process, according to CEO Peter Platzer, paving the way for a constellation that could number 50 or more in the near future.

Spire’s remote sensing satellites range from 1U to 3U and are built with Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components wherever possible to lower costs. The spacecraft carry multiple sensors for customers in 12 verticals spread across North America, Europe and Asia. Speaking to Via Satellite, Platzer said the company has a strong focus on designing both hardware and software as one. This unified approach helps the company maintain its rapid development pace.

“We look at developing the hardware and developing the software as almost the same thing,” said Platzer. “That’s an approach we have that allows us to build additional sensors very quickly. We have literally gone from having an idea to having it on a spacecraft in four months.”

Spire describes itself as a satellite-powered data company, where satellites are the means to solve problems with unique space-based data. This is similar to the way Skybox Imaging has often described itself, where satellites are an enabler rather than the primary focus of the company. Spire, however, differs from Skybox by being a remote sensing company that is not focused on imagery.

“Spire’s lazy,” Platzer joked. “Imaging is a really, really hard market. I have the utmost respect for those that go into imaging.”

Instead, Spire’s multi-sensor satellites provide a variety of data types such as Automatic Identification System (AIS) service for tracking ships, and weather payloads that measure temperature, pressure and precipitation. With this space-based data collection, the company can then amalgamate different data to solve problems on Earth. Platzer said Spire is focused on oceans and very remote areas that “are generally neglected by remote sensing.” This has opened up some surprising markets such as curbing piracy and illegal overfishing. Previously untraceable behavior can now be identified via satellite.

“That is an area that we found where people can do something with our data that simply wasn’t possible before. [For example:] this vessel is fishing in a legal area, but it’s fishing off an illegal fish species. Because, based on the movement and other information we can derive from it, I’m telling you they are fishing for tuna and not for mackerel. They are telling you the fish are mackerel, but they might put the tuna at the bottom and then put the mackerel on top and that’s why we don’t detect it. But by their movements, we can nail them, and we can stop something illegal that threatens our food supply,” he said.

With the most recent round of funding from RRE Ventures, Moose Capital, Quihoo and Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, Spire has been aggressively hiring to continue scaling up both the size of the company and its future constellation. One of the company’s next steps is to set up an office in Singapore. Platzer said customer demand, human capital, and significant interest from current and future customers influenced the decision.

In preparation for a large constellation, Spire has also contracted with several undisclosed launch providers to carry satellites into orbit. As a mitigation strategy, the company has contracted multiple launch providers in case of a failure, Platzer said. “We have purchased dozens of launch slots for our constellation to deliver our product to our customers in the next 12 months,” he added. These launches distribute between two and eight satellites per rocket.

With a new office, new launch contracts and a new constellation all simultaneously underway, Platzer said the next step is to bring together the right mix of people.

“Approaching the organization from the perspective of an employee, if people ask me where do you see Spire in 10 years my vision is that Spire is the largest organization of collaborative ‘super-stars’ that use data to work on really hard problems that matter. We would probably use satellites still, but we might use a whole bunch of other technologies as well,” he said.

Source

Nigeria: Dr. Spencer Onuh, Director and Chief Executive of Centre for Satellite Technology Development, CSTD feels that the nation loses about $2 billion to capital flight annually due to importation of foreign satellite.

It is being felt that such a trend, if not checked, would negatively impact not just the country’s space agency, but also the economy at large.

Onuh noted that its quite undesirable why the nation chooses to import overseas satellite services even when they can acquire data from the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) through Nigeria Sat 1.

He underscored the merit of making more investments in country’s domestics satellite programme, thus, “ For every naira you spend on any satellite, it brings a lot of Naira in terms of employment. This is so because this agency employed over 2,000 staff and by the time the Assembly, Integration and Testing, AIT centre is ready and functional, we will be thinking about 150,000 staff including engineers and support staff in only the AIT.”

Source Vanguard

(September 2014) China will promote the application of satellite earth observation technologies to better serve the economy, officials and experts said.

China has already built a network of satellites and other facilities for earth observation in pursuing its space programs including manned space navigation, lunar probe and Beidou navigation system, but officials said much remains to be done in the actual application of the technology.

Remote sensing via satellites and other technology has played an important role in the national economic and social development, said Xu Dazhe, head of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence at a recent conference.

The administration will promote the construction of a high-definition earth observation system and the spatial data infrastructure, he said.

It plans to spend ten years in constructing an earth observation system that integrates use of air, space and ground based technology, including drones, satellites and GPS systems, in order to serve the economic and social development.

“China’s remote sensing application has been undergoing a rapid development. China’s remote sensing satellites have been developed from the phase of experimental application to business service,” Luo Ge, an official with the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, said

He said the number of China’s satellites and the quality of the pictures and data taken by the satellites have been greatly improved.

On August 19, China successfully launched its most advanced earth observation satellite, the Gaofen-2, which is able to see a one-meter-long object from space in full color.

The Gaofen-2 is the second of seven satellites to be launched for China’s indigenous high-definition observation project Gaofen before 2020. The project was initiated in May 2010.

Gaofen-1, the first satellite of the project, was launched in April 2013.

Luan Enjie, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in the area of remote sensing, China has largely relied on foreign satellites, while the launching of Gaofen-1 and Gaofen-2 satellites means the country has entered a new era of independently developing high-definition satellites.

Gu Xingfa, expert with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said China will launch more high-definition remote sensing satellites in the near future, gradually promote the application of the remote sensing satellites, and reduce its dependence on foreign satellites.

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Related links
China to build comprehensive earth observation system in 10 years

This workshop is organised in the framework of the INTERREG IVC Project “Regions4GreenGrowth”, and hosted by the Észak-Alföld Regional Development Agency in Debrecen, Hungary (11/12/2014)

It will offer an opportunity to discuss how innovative geoinformation services (based on Earth Observation data and/or satellite navigation and location) can help regional administrators improve public services and make better informed decisions about stimulating economic development and environmental sustainability.

The workshop will be based on the challenges and opportunities identified in Észak-Alföld to build a case study and identify opportunities for new projects and collaboration among innovation actors in the region and beyond to implement innovative solutions.

For further information, please click here