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With the direct receiving station VIGISAT, the only one of its kind in France, satellite radar technology puts itself at the service of scientific research, offering worldwide and detailed observation of both maritime and land environments, systematically and in all weathers.

This radar data, which reaches CLS in real time, enables the CNES and IFREMER subsidiary to be increasingly effective in terms of environmental monito- ring, maritime safety and sustainable management of marine resources. VIGISAT is a distributor of RADARSAT-1 and 2 data. VIGISAT is also capable of receiving radar data from the ENVISAT and ERS-2 satellites.

The maritime and terrestrial services VIGISAT provides include combating pollution and illegal fishing, supporting state action at sea, assisting with the development of re- newable energy, monitoring maritime traffic, monitoring of river catchment areas, monitoring of coastlines and mapping. CLS installed a radar system to combat illegal fishing of Antarctic toothfish in the Kerguelen Islands in 2004.

This system, operated by CLS in cooperation with the Re- gional Operational Centre for Supervision and Rescue (CROSS), has put an end to this scourge. French scien- tists and fishermen now have control of these areas and are confirming that the stock is regenerating.

It is this experience and expertise that CLS has made available in Metropolitan France, namely the technical means to use a vast range of radar satellite images to monitor and protect our oceans.
Thus CLS has deployed VIGISAT, a unique station for the reception and analysis of satellite radar images, located in the Technopôle Brest-Iroise Science Park, which hosts its radar applications division.
The VIGISAT receiving station includes an operational centre for real-time analysis of radar images of terres- trial marine applications.

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Increased sea levels and reduced freshwater reserves are the findings at the start of the century. But what is the scale of these phenomena and how can we properly measure the level of the sea on our coasts and the state of water systems and reserves on our planet? To answer this question, the French National Centre for Space Stu- dies (CNES) has assigned CLS with the PISTACH* pro- ject, a programme to provide increasingly accurate sea level measurement for coastal and continental waters.

*Prototype Innovant de Système de Traitement pour l’Altimétrie Côtière et l’Hydrologie (Innovative Prototype Processing System for Coastal Altimetry and Hydrology)

30 experts in altimetry and CLS developers have worked to im- prove the data collected by the JASON-2 satellite ocean obser- vation. In collaboration with LEGOS (the French space geophysics and oceanography research laboratory), Cemagref (the French research institute specialising in the sustainable management of land and water) and the IRD (Institute of Research for Develop- ment), CLS teams have improved the Franco-American satellite’s processing algorithms, enabling it to measure the level of the sea on our coasts more accurately and to provide improved unders- tanding and monitoring of our main water systems and lakes. In this way CLS is extending its sphere of knowledge from open ocean to coastal waters and thus improving its oceanographic
data and products for offshore operations, regional modelling and fisheries management.

Thus CLS can determine sea levels between 5 and 50 km off our coast to within as little as 1-5 cm and this can be done almost in real time!

Measurements by JASON-2 also allow the level of major lakes and river basins to be monitored regularly and globally, albeit less precisely than for the seas.

The global coverage provided by this satellite is of great benefit, since we know that very few measurement networks exist in situ, particularly in Africa, and that fresh water reserves such as Lake Victoria, may extend over several countries.

It represents a revolution in the field of hydrology, with data that enables monitoring and hence better management of freshwater reserves that are spread over various countries.

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The traveling exhibition which shows how the space activities and applications benefit our everyday lives on earth European Space Expo was held in Sofia between 16th and 24th of May 2014.

The exhibition is organized from directorate “Information Activities of the DG Enterprise and Industry of the EC and presents the current state of the programme for Earth Observation Copernicus and global navigation Galileo of the EU and ESA. ReSAC was invited from the organizers to make a speech on the application of the space technologies. On 20.05.2014 a lecture was made on the topic “Operational capacity in Copernicus and trans-border applications for South East Europe of the ReSAC and Agency for Sustainable Development and Eurointegration” in which scientific developments and operational services developed by the two organizations in the areas of environment, agriculture, forestry, disaster management and others were presented. On 25.05.2014 ReSAC presented in details the Copernicus programme – history, the current state and its future, as well as ideas on how Bulgaria could participate in the programme.

The activities of the Space professionals, scientists and stakeholders lead to a further step in the membership of Bulgaria in European Space Agency (ESA) and GEO.

With the decision of the Council of Ministers from 11th of June 2014, Bulgarian Government accepted the project for an Agreement of a PECS cooperating state between Bulgaria and European Space Agency. The activities and negotiations to sign the agreement are in the responsibilities of the Ministry of Economy and Energy.

With the Council of Ministers Decision from the same date Bulgarian Government accepted the Bulgarian membership in the Group of the Earth Observation – GEO through the Ministry of Investment Planning.

For more information:
Remote Sensing Application Center (ReSAC)
61, Tzar Assen Str., fl. 2, 1463, Sofia, Bulgaria. Tel: +359 2 980 0731 / Fax: +359 2 981 8216. “e-mail”:mailto:vassil.vassilev@resac-bg.org
http://www.resac-bg.org

Toulouse, July 1st 2014. During the Toulouse Space Show a networking breakfast “Interregional Cooperation in Aerospace” was organised among major French, Greek and Italian aerospace clusters.

The event aimed to highlight the collaboration among the three clusters: the Aerospace Valley (AV), the Hellenic Space Technologies and Applications Cluster (si-Cluster) and the Apulian Aerospace Cluster (DTA). Moreover, the cooperation aims to offer a networking opportunity for the enterprises of the three clusters.
Following the successful ongoing cooperation, the three clusters signed a letter of intent for a future long cooperation. This represents an important step in the field of interregional cooperation in aerospace.

“Midi-Pyrénée, the Apulia Region, Attika and Western Greece Region believe on the importance for Europe to exploit the Regional dimension of aerospace activities and they consider aerospace as a pillar of their smart regional strategy”, said Giovanni Sylos Labini, BoD of the Apulian Aerospace Cluster, who welcomed the meeting.

This new cooperation aims to highlight that is fundamental to use public resources devoted to aerospace activities in the most efficient manner for the benefits of European citizens.

For the three clusters where present:
• Giuseppe Acierno, President, Apulian Aerospace Cluster
• Marc Péré, President, Chief Operating Officer Aerospace Valley
• Jorge-Andres Sanchez-Papaspiliou, Chief Strategy and Financial Officer, Corallia

From left: Athanasios Potsis, Chairman Hellenic Association of Space Industry; Jorge-Andres Sanchez-Papaspiliou, Chief Strategy and Financial Officer, Corallia; Marc Péré, President, Chief Operating Officer Aerospace Valley; Giuseppe Acierno, President of Apulian Aerospace Cluster.

From left: Giuseppe Acierno, President of Apulian Aerospace Cluster (DTA); Giovanni Sylos Labini, BoD, Apulian Aerospace Cluster

1st July 2014, the new ad interim President of NEREUS is Nichi Vendola, President of Puglia Region (Italy)

NEREUS, Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies, is an initiative by regions with the common objective to spread the use and understanding of space technologies across Europe for the benefits of regions and their citizens. NEREUS not only serves as an advocate for the regions in matters of space uses (regional end-user) but aims at playing an active role in the construction and development of markets for space based services and applications. In this respect the network promotes a cross- sectorial approach and calls for facilitating optimal exploitation of Europe’s space systems for societal challenges and innovation performance in the Union. As a strong voice for the regional dimension of European Space Policy, NEREUS wants to increase and enhance the participation of citizens and companies (especially SMEs) in the European Space Policy and Programmes.

Beginning from the 1st July 2014, Nichi Vendola is the new ad interim President of NEREUS, succeeding to Mr. Alain Beneteau (Midi-Pyrénées, FR) who continues to be involved in the political representation of the network as Vice President together with Mr. Christian Bruns (Bremen, DE) and Mr. Mark Lester (East Midlands, UK). Nichi Vendola is the President of Puglia Region (Italy) since 2005 and member of ENVE and CIVEX committees of the Committee of Regions.

Upcoming activities:
7/10/2014 at 2.30 pm: OPEN DAYS 2014 Workshop
“SPACE4REGIONS”: Satellite solutions as a driver for innovation and growth
Venue : Nereus premises- Rue Montoyer 21, 1000 Bruxelles
Contacts: Phone +32.2.2305775 email nereus.bruxelles@euroinbox.com

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(03July2014) The maximum peak height (MPH) algorithm (Matthews et al., 2012) has been released as a plugin for the BEAM toolbox.

The algorithm gives estimates of chlorophyll-a for near-coastal and inland waters as well as identification of cyanobacteria blooms and floating vegetation from MERIS L1B data corrected for Rayleigh effects. The processor was developed by Dr. Mark Matthews (University of Cape Town), Dr. Daniel Odermatt (Brockmann consult) and developer Tom Block (Brockmann consult). The original algorithm was modified to give improved performance in oligotrophic and glint affected waters, over floating vegetation, and flagging of pixels affected by the adjacency affect (Matthews & Odermatt, An improved MPH algorithm for the BEAM toolbox, forthcoming).

It has been validated using a global chlorophyll a dataset in the scope of ESA’s Diversity II project and is the best performing algorithm for eutrophic lakes. It should be of interest to many scientists working in spatially constrained and inland and near-coastal waters affected by cyanobacteria blooms.

The plugin called the MERIS MPH Processor V1.3.3 can be downloaded

ScanEx Image Processor software (SIP) developed by ScanEx RDC started to be distributed and used in Nepal

Four Nepalese companies all at once became new users of this software for satellite images processing. The software was supplied via the Indian dealer — SATPALDA (http://www.satpalda.com/).

“The Nepali market is quite saturated with software similar to SIP, but we foster big expectations from cooperation with ScanEx RDC. We are glad that on such a difficult market, competition-wise, we have been able to successfully offer an alternative software product, not inferior in its functionality to rival products, having the advantage of a higher performance and being user-friendly” — commented the deal Amit Seymour, of Business Development Manager of Satpalda company.

“This is a small but very significant step, confirming our intention to develop international cooperation and to promote our software worldwide. We plan to develop our presence in the Asian market, offering the most flexible and effective solutions to customers and distributors. We are grateful to our Indian colleagues for supporting us in our undertaking, “said Ilya Farutin, Head of the Ground Segment and Software Solutions Department of ScanEx RDC.

ScanEx Image Processor is the high-performance system with a wide range of possibilities for photogrammetric and thematic processing of remote sensing data.

Should you have any questions related to our software, please do not hesitate to contact us at software@scanex.ru.

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(By Sophie Curtis, 28Jun 2014) The ‘open data’ movement in the UK has prompted the creation of a cluster of new businesses

Data is more accessible today than anyone could have imagined 10 or 20 years ago. From corporate databases to social media and embedded sensors, data is exploding, with total worldwide volume expected to reach 6.6 zettabytes by 2020.

Open data is information that is available for anyone to use, for any purpose, at no cost. For example, the Department for Education publishes open data about the performance of schools in England, so that companies can create league tables and citizens can find the best-performing schools in their catchment area.

Governments worldwide are working to open up more of their data. Since January 2010, more than 18,500 UK government data sets have been released via the data.gov.uk web portal, creating new opportunities for organisations to build innovative digital services.

Businesses are also starting to realise the value of making their non-personal data freely available, with open innovation leading to the creation products and services that they can benefit from.

“The whole move in the 21st century to a data-driven economy means that countries need a data infrastructure that’s fit for purpose, and a good part of that data infrastructure is going to be open data,” said Sir Nigel Shadbolt, chairman of the Open Data Institute (ODI), which aims to drive open data culture.

Now a range of UK start-ups are working with the ODI to build businesses using open data, and have already unlocked a total of £2.5 million worth of investments and contracts.

Mastodon C joined the ODI start-up programme at its inception in December 2012. Shortly after joining, the company teamed up with Ben Goldacre and Open Healthcare UK, and embarked on a project investigating the use of branded statins over the far cheaper generic versions.

The data analysis identified potential efficiency savings to the NHS of £200 million. The company is now also working with the Technology Strategy Board and Nesta to help them gain better insight into their data.

Another start-up, CarbonCulture is a community platform designed to help people use resources more efficiently. The company uses high-tech metering to monitor carbon use in the workplace and help clients save money.

Organisations such as 10 Downing Street, Tate, Cardiff Council, the GLA and the UK Parliament are using the company’s digital tools to monitor and improve their energy consumption. CarbonCulture has also helped the Department of Energy and Climate Change reduce its gas use by 10 per cent.

Spend Network’s business is built on collecting the spend statements and tender documents published by government in the UK and Europe and then publishing this data openly so that anyone can use it. The company currently hosts over £1.2 trillion of transactions from the UK and over 1.8 million tenders from across Europe.

One of the company’s major breakthroughs was creating the first national, open spend analysis for central and local government. This was used to uncover a 45 per cent delay in the UK’s tendering process, holding up £22 billion of government funds to the economy.

Meanwhile, TransportAPI uses open data feeds from Traveline, Network Rail and Transport for London to provide nationwide timetables, departure and infrastructure information across all modes of public transport.

TransportAPI currently has 700 developers and organisations signed up to its platform, including individual taxpayers and public sector organisations like universities and local authorities. Travel portals, hyperlocal sites and business analytics are also integrating features, such as the ‘nearest transport’ widget, into their websites.

These are just four examples of how start-ups are using open data to create new digital services. The ODI this week announced seven new open data start-ups joining the programme, covering 3D printed learning materials, helping disabled communities, renewable energy markets, and smart cities.

“We’ve been pushing hard for the government to release non-personal open data across a whole range of stuff, from health to education to transport,” said Sir Shadbolt. “We need to keep convincing Treasury that the creation of these businesses ultimately creates much bigger economic value than a few bob sweated out of monopoly rent.”

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(May 2014) Geospatial World magazine awards Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and Airbus Defence and Space for satellite imagery distribution web portal.

Airbus Defence and Space along with the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) was awarded the Geospatial World Innovation Award for Technology Innovation in Big Data for the Dutch Satellite Data Portal, which enables the government of The Netherlands to disseminate satellite imagery to Dutch entities free of charge.

In March 2012, NSO, with support from Airbus Defence and Space’s Geo-Intelligence programme line, launched the Dutch Satellite Data Portal to provide broad access to satellite imagery over The Netherlands. The portal currently offers new imagery from the FORMOSAT-2 and Deimos-1/UK-DMC-2 satellites on a daily basis. Imagery is collected and made available for users to search and order within 24 hours.

Since its launch, imagery provided through the portal has been widely used for multiple applications, including precision agriculture applications that have led to increased end-user profits and reduced pollution from pesticides and deformation monitoring which has allowed engineers to track changes on the land surface from work taking place underground.

The GEO-Intelligence programme line at Airbus Defence and Space is honoured to have received this award alongside the NSO. We are committed to enabling our national customers, including The Netherlands, to efficiently and effectively manage and distribute their geospatial data.
Bernhard Brenner Head of the Geo-Intelligence programme line at Airbus Defence and Space

The Dutch Satellite Data Portal represents an important first step for additional services that will come online in 2015 as part of the operational phase of the Sentinel missions – part of the European Space Agency’s Copernicus programme.

The Sentinel satellites will collect data for a number of remote sensing applications in precision agriculture, soil movement, algae monitoring, water management and forest monitoring, and will be made available through the Dutch Satellite Data Portal.

The Geospatial World Technology Innovation Award was bestowed to Airbus Defence and Space and NSO during the Geospatial World Forum, which ran 5-9 May 2014 in Geneva.

Users can search this INSPIRE compliant web portal by visiting:
http://nso.datadoors.net/dd3

Dutch users may register by visiting:
http://www.spaceoffice.nl/nl/Satellietdataportaal/Registreren/

Businesses and research institutions will soon have more reliable access to commercial earth observation satellite data, according to a proposal presented by the European Commission in Brussels today.

It aims to ensure better access to high resolution earth observation satellite data (HRSD) in particular, which, together with HRSD-based applications, are an essential tool for environment monitoring, urban planning, agriculture, natural resources management and disaster and emergency management, as well as for security and defence. Today regulations governing commercial activities using HRSD differ between EU Member States. This situation creates obstacles to market development as it hampers access to data vital by related businesses: including data resellers, data processors, value-adding service providers and software developers. Today´s proposal aims to improve business conditions for such companies in Europe and to partially harmonise rules defining HRSD and related transparency and standards in the EU.

European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, commented that: “The use of satellite imagery is an important and fast growing business. This Directive will facilitate commercial Earth observation and access to satellite data within the EU, accelerating the development of this innovative sector and the creation of new products and services. Our economy will benefit from increased competition by improving free circulation of satellite data throughout the EU.”

More information available at:

The objective of the Directive on the dissemination of Earth observation satellite for commercial purposes is to facilitate the dissemination of satellite data in Europe and to establish a more reliable access to HRSD, while fully safeguarding security interests. The Directive will achieve these goals by introducing:

  • a common definition of HRSD, specifying which satellite data is considered high resolution and needs regulation and which data is already “business-ready”;
  • common standards for transparency, predictability, legal certainty and fair treatment;
  • common standards for efficiency and business-friendly implementation, in particular regarding the procedures used by Member States to regulate the dissemination of HRSD.

Next steps

This proposal will now be examined by the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. If successful, Member States would then have to adapt their national law, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive by end of 2017.

Background

Satellite imagery enables the repeated observation of any region on Earth, at different scales, and without breaching any territory sovereignty. The newest generation of Earth observation satellites offer very high resolution imagery (i.e. objects of less than 0.5 m are visible), daily monitoring and very quick access to the imagery.

Currently, the production and dissemination of HRSD by commercial operators is regulated by the countries in which they are registered. As HRSD regulations differ per country and lack of transparency and predictability, the HRSD value chain and customer businesses encounter difficulties.

The Directive covers the commercial side of EU space policy in Earth observation. It complements the Copernicus programme, which is the EU’s Earth observation programme. Copernicus will ensure the regular observation and monitoring of Earth sub-systems, the atmosphere, oceans, and continental surfaces, and that will provide reliable, validated and guaranteed information in support of a broad range of environmental and security applications and decisions.