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India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked ISRO to develop a SAARC satellite, which can be gifted by India to the SAARC region. Delivering his speech at Sriharikota spaceport after witnessing PSLV C23 launch he urged ISRO to expand navigation system to all of South Asia.


“Continued progress in space must remain a national mission. We must keep enhancing our space capabilities,” said the Prime Minister who asked the Department of Space, to pro-actively engage with all stakeholders, to maximise use of space science in Governance and Development and also work with Universities and Colleges to attract talents. Stressing the importance of space programme, he noted, space technology has also evolved into an invaluable asset in disaster management. Accurate advanced warning, and tracking of Cyclone Phailin, saved countless lives recently. He also added that GIS has transformed policy planning, implementation, and that space imaging enables modern management, conservation of water resources. He said all these would play a critical role in realising the vision of a Digital India —the power of 125 crore connected Indians.

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Over 85 million square kilometers of fresh basemap imagery from Airbus Defense and Space is now available in ArcGIS Online. This announcement follows the signing of an agreement between Airbus Defense and Space and Esri for access to select sets of Airbus Defense and Space imagery.

Through this agreement with Esri, ArcGIS Online users will have access to a near global coverage with Airbus Defense and Space’s SPOTMaps 2.5m, seamless mosaic product, as well as very high resolution 50cm Pleiades imagery products over major cities worldwide.

These fresh datasets will be used to enhance the existing Esri ArcGIS Online World Imagery Basemap, one of the foundation datasets available worldwide to all Esri users.

The seamless SPOTMaps 2.5 mosaic provides users with a high-end, seamless basemap over most of the world to be used as a backdrop for many GIS applications.

This mosaicked data is enhanced by fresh Pleiades imagery, giving ArcGIS Online users updated information over major cities worldwide. Imagery will also be available, on demand, for deployments through the Esri Data Appliance solution, and more will become available through the end of September 2014.

“With this announcement, ArcGIS users will have easier access to really crisp, high resolution imagery,” said Jack Dangermond, President of Esri.

“We’ve added over 85M km2 of Airbus Defense and Space SPOTMaps 2.5m seamless, global and current mid-scale imagery over 164 countries to our cloud basemaps, available through ArcGIS Online”.

“We are excited by this partnership with Esri. Thanks to this agreement, ArcGIS Online users will be able to leverage an extensive access to our high resolution, high-end, and, more importantly, fresh basemap content through the Esri platform,” said Bernhard Brenner, Head of the Geo-Intelligence program line of Airbus Defense and Space.

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(Co-authored by Arthur Lerner-Lam, Alison Miller and Sean Solomon). The scientific heart of Columbia University’s Earth Institute is the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which has been engaged in observing and analyzing earth systems for over 65 years. If we are to develop a sustainable and renewable economy, it is essential that human activities have as little negative impact on the planet as possible.

Without a sophisticated understanding of how earth systems work, it is impossible to manage and minimize the impacts of our activities on our home planet. When our scientists make their observations and collect data, whether on land, at sea, or in the atmosphere, they do it with enormous care, working very hard to ensure that their research does not damage the planet they are working to protect. Unfortunately, some members of the environmental community, along with misinformed state agencies and elected representatives, often make erroneous assumptions about the impact of our observational methods on the living earth. They seek to stop research projects that have passed the most rigorous forms of peer review and have gone through a lengthy and thorough assessment of environmental impact, without stopping to understand how critical observations are actually made. A recent example in New Jersey provides a case in point.

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(Geneva, Switzerland) Barbara J. Ryan has been re-appointed, without competition, to a second, three year term as the Secretariat Director of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Ryan’s re-appointment was made by unanimous consent of the GEO Executive Committee.

Based in Geneva, GEO is a voluntary partnership of governments and organizations that envisions “a future wherein decisions and actions for the benefit of humankind are informed by coordinated, comprehensive and sustained Earth observations and information.” GEO membership includes 90 nations and the European Commission, and 77 Participating Organizations comprised of international bodies with a mandate in Earth observations. GEO’s initial ten year mandate was extended for another decade by its Ministerial body in January of this year.

GEO’s primary focus is to create a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) to address environmental and societal challenges facing decision leaders and individual citizens across nine essential areas: agriculture, biodiversity, climate, disasters, ecosystems, energy, health, water and weather.

Prior to joining GEO in 2012, Ryan served as Director of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Space Programme, and – in 2007 — as Chair of the international Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), which coordinates information from more than 100 civilian satellites. Prior to that, she served as the Associate Director for Geography of the United States Geological Survey with responsibility for the Landsat program, and the agency’s other remote sensing, geography and civilian mapping functions.

Ryan earned a B.A. in Geology from the State University of New York Cortland, Masters degrees in Geography from the University of Denver and in Civil Engineering from Stanford University. She was recently awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science from SUNY Cortland.

GEO Secretariat: 7 bis, avenue de la Paix • Case postale 2300 • CH-1211 Geneva 2 • Switzerland
Tel: + 41 (0) 22 730 85 05 • Fax: +41 (0)22 730 85 20 • secretariat@geosec.org – See more at: http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/33487/2/#sthash.An96RyUU.dpuf

(By Caleb Henry | July 10, 2014) Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and the Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) are working together to build a new Earth observation satellite: Alsat 1B.

The new satellite builds on the accomplishments of Alsat 1A, which was launched in 2002.

ASAL has a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK Space Agency to promote collaboration between the two space programs. Of critical importance for ASAL was to bring skills for building satellites to Algeria. As such, 18 Algerian engineers will handle the assembly, integration and test phase for the satellite in Algeria, and 18 Algerian students will travel to the University of Surrey in Guildford, England for educational purposes.

The new Alsat 1B satellite will carry a 24-meter multispectral imager and a 12-meter panchromatic imager using the SSTL-100 platform.

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CLOUDEO teams with world-leading content and software providers to offer to you a unique secure and highly scalable geo-infrastructure as a Service bringing together data, software and processing power within a private cloud environment at a certified hoster to develop, produce and market geo-services.

CLOUDEO is dedicated to generating greater value from geodata by bringing together all those who create, interpret, and use it, including:

  • Users of Geo-Services
  • Developers of Geo-Services
  • Providers of Geo-Software
  • Providers of Geo-Data

CLOUDEO enables new business models for existing and new market players. Rather than making huge upfront investments in permanent licenses for software, IT and data, CLOUDEO users can now buy subscriptions and even 24/7 geo processing services on a pay-per-use basis at affordable prices, or enter into innovative revenue sharing schemes.

Data providers, software developers and service providers are enabled to market their products and services more easily and efficiently.

CLOUDEO GEO-COLLABORATION PLATFORM

CLOUDEO removes the current entry barriers to EO data usage, service development, and service delivery by developing and implementing EO specific cloud technology and new business models. The company is creating a professional geo-collaboration platform that will enable the growth of product-oriented, value-adding business and increase the use of EO data.

To this end, CLOUDEO is offering a geoinfrastructure as a service (Geo-IaaS) with four main elements:

  • CLOUDEO Content Library – hosts geodata from many different data providers. It provides fast and easy access to data from many different data and content providers for your application development and service operations on CLOUDEO.
  • CLOUDEO Apps Library – hosts applications from many different software developers where data users and service providers can find applications to help them interpret data and derive the information they need for their projects.
  • CLOUDEO Processing Environment – a private user space for creating value-added products and services including CLOUDEO Workbench e.g. virtual desktop (see http://store.cloudeo-ag.com/cloudeo-workbench) when interactivity is needed or CLOUDEO Factory when machine to machine is needed.
  • CLOUDEO Store – an online marketplace for data, software, and services that makes it possible to purchase one-off downloads, subscriptions, and even 24/7 geoprocessing services.

Testimonials

“We are always looking for innovative and cost-effective ways for offering our solutions to a wide range of organizations that need to easily visualize and leverage geospatial data for enhanced decision-making”. Though our partnership with CLOUDEO, we will be able to offer our solutions through a unique online portal in a cloud-based environment, which will further expand the overall reach of our solutions to a wider user base.” Mladen Stojic, President, Hexagon Geospatial.

“CLOUDEO’s service opens up great new possibilities to reach our customers more easily, with less administrative effort. We are sure to get new customers with it. The easy-to-access web store solution is an especially customer-oriented and well-designed platform.” Dr. Thomas Heege, CEO, EOMAP.

“CLOUDEO’s unique geo-collaboration portal provides all of the elements our customers need to develop a professional service easily and enable a fast market entry and ROI. That’s why we have decided to be CLOUDEO partner.” Dave Hodgson, CEO, DMCii.

Contact:

CloudEO AG, Satellite Office, Ludwigstrasse 8,
80539 Munich, Germany
+49 89 206 021 166
sales@cloudeo-ag.com
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DEIMOS-2, the first Spanish very-high resolution satellite and the highest-resolution fully private satellite in Europe, was successfully launched last June 19th. It acquires panchromatic and 4-band multispectral images over a 12-km swath, producing pan-sharpened or stereo images with a resolution of 75 cm. It began capturing images just 12 hours after launch, and has acquired more than 400 scenes in its first two weeks of operations. DEIMOS-2 is now fully operational after a successful early orbit phase, and it is undergoing in-orbit commissioning before starting full commercial service in the next few months.

Elecnor Deimos, the technological branch of the Elecnor group, successfully launched DEIMOS-2, Spain’s first very-high resolution satellite, into orbit last June 19th at 21:11 CET from the Yasny launch base in Russia.

DEIMOS-2, with a mass of 300 kg and over 2 meters long, is a very-high resolution multispectral satellite which produces pan-sharpened images with a resolution of 75 cm per pixel. Its advanced imaging camera acquires panchromatic and 4-band multispectral images over a 12-km swath (which can be increased to 24 km in its wide-area mode), with a sustained production capacity in excess of 150,000 km2/day. DEIMOS-2 is also capable of acquiring single-pass stereo pairs, which allows creating 3D models of the imaged area.

DEIMOS-2 is the highest-resolution fully private satellite in Europe, and one of the very few privately-owned submetric satellites in the world.

The satellite is expected to have an operational lifetime in excess of seven years, and will contribute to projects in various applications fields, from agriculture, environment and climate change monitoring, to monitoring of natural crisis and civil protection (fires and floods), as well as defence, intelligence and borders control.
Just after launch the DEIMOS-2 satellite was repeatedly contacted by the three main stations of its Ground Segment Network: Puertollano (Spain), Kiruna (Sweden) and Inuvik (Canada). All subsystems on board have been activated and tested, and DEIMOS-2 has already passed successfully its first calibration and validation phase.

The satellite began capturing images just 12 hours after its launch, and has acquired more than 400 scenes in its first two weeks of operations. The first images acquired include the complex built for 2022 World cup in Qatar capital, Doha, the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (US) and the Opera House in Sydney (Australia).

These first published images, even if still lacking in-orbit calibration, show a high level of details and the very good quality that shall be expected from DEIMOS-2 products. More images will be published in the coming weeks, during the commissioning phase, as they become available.


After the successful launch and a by-the-book early orbit phase, DEIMOS-2 is now undergoing its in-orbit commissioning, which will include the orbit maneuvers campaign to reach its nominal operational orbit, and the in-flight absolute calibration of the payload. Elecnor Deimos expects to start full commercial operations in the next few months.

DEIMOS-2, developed by Elecnor Deimos in collaboration with Satrec-I (South Korea), has been integrated in the Puertollano Satellite Integration and Operations Centre (Ciudad Real, Spain), a complex built specifically by Elecnor Deimos for integrating and managing its own and third-party satellites. Equipped with the latest technology, it has engineering areas, a 400+ m2 clean room for satellite integration and testing, a dual S/X-band antenna with a diameter of 10.2 m to communicate with the satellites, and a complete Mission Control Centre.

This project completes Elecnor Deimos’ presence in the entire value chain of space missions. Elecnor Deimos has the demonstrated capability to manage end-to-end space programs: design, integrate, validate, launch and operate Earth observation satellites, distribute their data and develop derived services and applications, and develop full end-to-end missions for customers worldwide.

Elecnor Deimos

Elecnor Deimos is Elecnor’s technological area that specialises in engineering solutions in the aerospace, information systems and telecommunications sectors. Its main business areas are remote sensing, aerospace and defence systems, air and maritime navigation, satellite systems.
www.elecnor-deimos.com

Elecnor

Elecnor develops projects involving infrastructure, renewable energies and new technologies. It has 12,500 employees and operates in over 40 countries.
www.elecnor.com

Monitoring wildlife in the Arctic is difficult. Study areas are cold, barren and often inaccessible. For decades scientists have struggled to study animals, like polar bears, which live in these remote areas.

Now researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey have begun testing a new, yet counterintuitive solution – rather then get close to the animals, monitor them from afar. Scientists have started using satellites to observe, count and track polar bears. USGS scientists and their Canadian collaborators have begun analyzing high-resolution satellite images from a part of the Canadian High Arctic to determine the feasibility of using satellites to study polar bear populations.

“We tested the use of satellite technology from DigitalGlobe to count polar bears by tasking the satellite to collect photos from an area where we were also conducting aerial surveys,” said Dr. Todd Atwood, research leader for the USGS Polar Bear Research Program. “We then analyzed the satellite and aerial survey data separately and found that the abundance estimates were remarkably similar.”

The study, which is led by former USGS scientist and current University of Minnesota researcher Dr. Seth Stapleton, is part of an ongoing effort to identify non-invasive technologies to better understand how polar bears respond to the loss of sea ice due to a warming climate. This study tries to determine the number of polar bears and where they reside on Rowley Island in Nunavut’s Foxe Basin during the ice-free summer. “We selected Rowley as our study site because bear density is high during summer and the flat terrain provides an ideal setting to evaluate the use of satellite imagery,” said Stapleton.

Traditionally, scientists study polar bears by capturing and tagging them or by conducting aerial surveys with low flying aircraft. While these methods provide a wealth of important information, they are disruptive to the animals and are often not possible when dealing with remote locations. “We think satellite technology has the potential to open vast, remote regions of the Arctic to regular monitoring. It has tremendous potential to aid the circumpolar management of polar bears,” said Stapleton.

The next steps in the research focus on testing the satellites’ ability to detect polar bear populations over larger areas, including sites along coastal Alaska. Using satellite imagery shows incredible promise and provides one more tool for those interested in preserving polar bear populations for future generations.

The ongoing research is part of the USGS Changing Arctic Ecosystems Initiative. The findings from the study are in the most recent issue of PLos ONE

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The Directorate of Industry, Procurement, and Legal affairs is responsible for elaborating and implementing the industrial policy of the Agency, representing the Director General in all relations with industry; it also elaborates and implements the Agency’s procurement rules and policies, and manages procurements for all activities of the Agency.

How your Directorate is taking care about the political strategy on the one hand and major industrial interests on the other. How is this duality integrated?

Special attention has always been paid by the Agency and by Member States, to the dialogue with European Space industry. The ESA dialogue with industry has been reinforced late 2012, since the last Council at Ministerial level decided to create a “High Level Forum” (HLF) that gathers together representatives of Member States and of the whole value chain of space industry to foster a dialogue on competitiveness and growth in Europe and provide recommendations to the Director General. It institutionalizes the dialogue, and in a number of cases trigger specific industry-ESA expert working groups whose exchanges allow to develop further in details issues and options.

The key question of the balance between industrial interests and political strategy is achieved when the Executive, e.g. wrt procurement and industrial policy evolutions, presents concrete proposals to Member States delegations through ESA Council and/or its subordinate bodies.

How is this balanced with the views of Member States and what does it mean in practice (ie what tools/instruments do you use to develop an industrial policy?

The working out of industrial policy evolution and set up is always a complex process, which has to consider the different views of Member States and of the different programme directorates, and ensure that proposals will be manageable, efficient while reflecting the objectives of the different stakeholders. Obviously, every ESA national Delegation has structured dialogues in place with national industry, in particular to prepare space national policies and Delegation positions w.r.t. ESA delegate bodies.

The large diversity of stakes necessitates step-by-step approaches, where issues are presented and discussed, options are sketched and Member States positions gathered, before policies are taking final shape. Sometimes different Council subordinate bodies have to be consulted before new policies are endorsed by Council. On these issues, I have been always looking for strong consensus, well ahead of pure majority votes; it is inevitably time and effort consuming but when adopted the policy is on solid grounds and presents chances for stability of rules over time, an essential element for industry.

Inevitably, evolutions with high political importance deserve decisions by Ministers, for example to mandate the Director General to put in place the means necessary to implement broad policy decisions.

Traditionally ESA responsibility is for the space manufacturing industry whilst many of the benefits lie downstream; how can ESA do more to help the downstream sector develop being this important to underpin and sustain investments made in the manufacturing segment?

The development of the downstream sector is, and always been, an important concern for ESA: the economy is there, as well as the direct benefit for the citizens. It is a domain where ESA is not alone to shape the success conditions. ESA already has put in place specific programmes like the VAC, within the Earth Observation Envelope Programme, or the Integrated Application Programme in ARTES, for this. ESA certainly helped through the development of knowledge, technologies. ESA already promoted the use of space technology and data. ESA demonstrated services and provide efficient access to data. To do more in this respect, and it is necessary, I am personally convinced that ESA needs a renewed mandate from Ministers.

EARSC has recently published a position paper on ESA downstream sector development, how do you respond to this and where do you see the priorities on the 5 major recommendations:
◦ stimulate the full exploitation of space data and the development of innovative applications, with industry-led initiatives
◦ create financial conditions for new initiatives to thrive and prosper
◦ provide specific support to the transition of proven demonstration concepts into commercial operations
◦ support access of European industry to the global market
◦ create a clear institutional market for EO services industry sector in Europe.

I would like to thank EARSC for it. It allowed to identify the most important elements that policy makers have to consider to develop the EO downstream sector. Being precise in the different domains of action, it allows Member States to reflect further on what could/should be performed by ESA, by the Commission, or through other national mechanisms. It is obviously useful for ESA programme directorates to reflect on what ESA can further develop and propose through work plans to programme boards.

To move forward, the EARSC position paper was included in a document which described the status of Executive plan of action wrt past HLF, together with the outcomes of the June HLF, which was discussed in the frame of ESA Industrial Policy Committee, end of June.

Our intention is to propose a resolution to Council, in view of the preparation of the end of the year Ministerial Conference, to further develop ESA programmes and activities in support to the development of the European downstream sector. Such a resolution would set a clear mandate to ESA, and would trigger a number of actions to define how best ESA could support the sector.

Part of the resolution addresses the need to continue the dialogue with industry and associations like EARSC, successfully engaged with the High Level Forum, in view to promote the utilisation of European operational space infrastructures, to reflect on how to reach sustainable commercial business, and to optimise the ESA procurement process and industrial policy measures in this domain. This dialogue should significantly help in developing the right actions, in defining optimized instruments. In itself the way it could be further organized is an important question.

Do you think it should be necessary to identify instruments that allow organising co-operation between ESA and the EO industry sector in a more effective way?

I think that ESA and industry associations can start reflections on the instruments which would foster further cooperation between ESA and the EO industry sector. A new mandate from the ESA Member States would in this respect provides a concrete impetus.

What specific measures EARSC members could be taking to help ESA develop a stronger platform in Europe for the downstream sector?

To help ESA develop a stronger platform in Europe for the downstream sector, probably the most urgent for EARSC members is to communicate to their respective ESA national delegation on their situation, and on the reasons why ESA involvement in the development of the sector appear beneficial to them, and for which specific objectives. The demands for space investments are multiple, opportunities exist in different space sectors, and in a context of competition for the national resources channeled through ESA, evidences need to be provided at a moment decisions makers may consider that the downstream sector development is already secured by the Commission or national programme plan of investments. This industry-national delegation dialogue is a necessity, and would prepare, the adoption of the resolution at the end of the year, and the implementation phase in case a renewed mandate would be granted.

We see a large number of private initiatives for developing and launching EO satellite constellations suddenly being launched from the US using private finance; why do you feel that this is possible in the US and not in Europe? In your opinion, what can Europe do to create the conditions for similar initiatives here?

The large number of private initiatives for developing and launching EO satellite constellations that you mention is a very interesting trend. It demonstrates, if needed, that there are real business perspectives, and threats. Inevitably this will have to stimulate the European industry reflections, and also trigger new analyses on the side of European institutions.

We can easily recognise that the business environment and the strengths and weaknesses of the EO industry in Europe and US … are very different! In addition, the attention paid to space by the governments, the media, the citizens are also very different on both sides of the Atlantic. Europe has to create its own framework conditions to develop its markets and industries. In this respect, the sectorial policies of the EU are an essential leverage.

It is an exciting and complex challenge, that European industry and space public sector, should vigorously take up. On the institutional side, a larger attention paid on how to leverage the economic potential of space scientific developments, coupled with increased reactivity and pro-activity, are pre-requisites; this should steer a number of evolutions, including for ESA.

We are reaching the end of the interview and here is an opportunity for you to share with us your vision on the future development of the EO geo-information service sector.

In my view, European EO service industry is ascending and is also very competent. However, the worldwide competitive environment is tough.

EARSC position paper has already identified a number of concrete domain of interventions, for which ESA can certainly contribute, with an increased “partner role” with many other stakeholders. This is certainly not the easier thing to do, but the DNA of the Agency has already features which can support successfully such a transformation.

In general terms, Europe has a strong scientific base, but has difficulties in transforming this knowledge into very successful business. Now that commercial applications develop in EO services, the key question is whether Europe will leverage its scientific knowledge, early demonstration initiatives, business inception phases, into growing, sustainable businesses. Considering the size of the European public investments in EO research and space infrastructure developments, and the coming long term operation perspectives of Copernicus, Europe is facing a turning point, and cannot fail.

What is your vision for the EU EO services industry, and/or what steps do you think ESA and /or the EU can take to ensure that the industry develops and maintains its leading position in a global market?

Many European stakeholders will have to cooperate; the Commission, involving all Directorates in charge of sectorial policies, ESA, and national space Agencies, have to exploit their respective roles and competencies, to develop the framework conditions which will give the best chance for this industry to grow and find a strong positioning on the worldwide markets. It is an urgent and essential matter.

Short Biography
Eric Morel de Westgaver took up duty as Director of Industry, Procurement and Legal Affairs (D/IPL) on 1 November 2013.
Eric Morel de Westgaver graduated in Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. He joined ESA in 1987 as Industrial Policy Officer in the Directorate of Administration. In 2001, he became Head of the Industrial Policy and Cost Analysis Department in the Directorate of Industrial Matters and Technology Programmes.
Before his current appointment, he had been Director of Procurement, Financial Operations and Legal Affairs (D/PFL) since April 2011 and before that, Head of the Procurement Department since October 2004 in the Directorate of Resources Management and Industrial Matters. In addition to this responsibility he was nominated Associate Director for Industrial Matters by the Director General in February 2010. In this capacity he conducted to completion the Procurement Reform in its regulatory and policy aspects to be in line with international best practices and to better control project costs and planning.