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(23 December 2013) A NASA observatory that will make the most precise, highest-resolution and most complete, space-based measurements of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere to date has marked a key milestone in preparation for its planned July 2014 launch.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 spacecraft was moved into a thermal vacuum chamber at Orbital Science Corporation’s Satellite Manufacturing Facility in Gilbert, Ariz., southeast of Phoenix, in late November, where it underwent a series of environmental tests that were completed last week. The thermal vacuum tests are designed to confirm the integrity of the observatory’s electrical connections and to subject the OCO-2 instrument and spacecraft to the extreme hot, cold, airless environment they will encounter once in orbit.

The observatory, consisting of the OCO-2 instrument, built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the Orbital-built OCO-2 spacecraft bus, is continuing its integration and test campaign, scheduled for completion in the spring. The observatory will then be shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., for final preparations for its planned July 1, 2014, launch.

OCO-2 is NASA’s first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide and is the latest mission in NASA’s study of the global carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change. The mission will uniformly sample the atmosphere above Earth’s land and ocean, collecting between 100,000 and 200,000 measurements of carbon dioxide concentration over Earth’s sunlit hemisphere every day for at least two years. It will do so with the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the regional-scale geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions as well as the places where carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored.

Scientists will use OCO-2 mission data to improve global carbon cycle models, better characterize the processes responsible for adding and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and make more accurate predictions of global climate change.

The mission provides a key new measurement that can be combined with other ground and aircraft measurements and satellite data to answer important questions about the processes that regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide and its role in the carbon cycle and climate. The aim of this information is to help policymakers and business leaders make better decisions to ensure climate stability and retain our quality of life. The mission will also serve as a pathfinder for future long-term satellite missions to monitor carbon dioxide.

OCO-2 is managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Orbital built the spacecraft and provides mission operations under JPL’s leadership. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

(source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
and Spacenewsfeed

GeoMaritime 2014 brings together the key players in the maritime industry to develop the value of marine geospatial information.

Delivering key stakeholders from industry, defence, government, nautical agencies and commercial organisations, this is the new opportunity to get to grip with key issues including interoperability, data collection, analysis and sharing, effective decision support and standards and format.

Key speakers include:

  • Lieutenant Commander Luís Miguel Cardoso Pércio Bessa Pacheco, Navy Staff Policy and Planning Division, PORTUGUESE NAVY
  • Chris Parry MBE, Head of Fleet AWNIS Unit & UK AWNIS Capability, DEFENCE MARITIME GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE CENTRE
  • Rear Admiral Tom Karsten, UK National Hydrographer, UNITED KINGDOM HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE (UKHO)
  • Jens Peter Hartmann, Senior Advisor, DANISH GEODATA AGENCY
  • Conor Delaney, Senior Scientist –Joint Research Centre, EUROPEAN COMMISSION
  • Fahad Al-Amri, Senior Engineer , Hydrographic Survey Unit, SAUDI ARAMCO

Learn more:

(13 December 2013) The European Space Agency’s (ESA) processing, archiving and dissemination system for Landsat 8 is now operating from the Matera satellite receiving station in southern Italy.

Since the summer the so-called LDCM Central Infrastructure Facility (CIF) has been operating from Spacemetric’s premises near Stockholm, Sweden. Landsat 8 data has been ingested from European ground stations, processed and made available on the data portal, typically well within the target 3 hours of the near real-time service. But with winter approaching the hardware and software has been shipped to more southerly latitudes.

It was always planned that the CIF would be hosted at a ground receiving station and the move was the subject of much planning during the autumn. To be able to ship the operational system Spacemetric set up and operated a copy in the interim that ensured continuity of product processing and data access services. With shipping to Italy and rebuild completed the operational system was brought back online in early December.

The move was completed successfully and well before the Christmas deadline. The final irony was the snow that fell in Matera while the Spacemetric team was on site – so much for flying south for the winter!

Source


Satellite observations are a key element in an integrated and sustained climate observing system and have been critically important for monitoring and understanding the Earth’s climate system during the past several decades.

The expected completion of the IPCC Fifth Assessment (AR5) in 2013-2014 makes it timely to discuss these achievements, to assess future opportunities and challenges with satellite derived climate information, and to provide guidance on future priorities.

The symposium will be an important step towards defining requirements, and the further development of an efficient and sustained international space-based Earth observing system.
This symposium is intended to bring together the international experts in climate observations, research, analysis and modelling to present and discuss results from their studies, with a particular emphasis on the role of space-based Earth observations

in improving our knowledge of the current climate at global and regional scales, and in the assessment of models used for climate projections.

Visit us on www.eumetsat.int
www.theclimatesymposium2014.com

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The 6th Conference on European Union Space Policy will take place at the European Commission’s Charlemagne Building, in Brussels, Belgium on January 28 and 29, 2014.

Registration is now open. Online registration closes January 22, 2014.

The theme is “What Direction for Europe in Space Between Now and 2020?.” The conference is sponsored by the presidents of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament.

The issues under discussion during the plenary sessions are:

  • European Space Industry: Facing the Challenge of Competitiveness
  • International Dimension of Space: Cooperation and Competitiveness
  • EU Space Programmes: Prospective State-of-Play
  • The Growing Role of Satellite Telecommunications, and New Challenges for Operators
  • What Are the New Challenges and Opportunities for Europe in Space?
  • The Defence and Security Dimension of Space Services and Activities

The keynote speaker on January 29 will be Antonio Tajani, vice-president of the European Commission.
Other morning speakers include the Greek Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Networks, Presidency of the Council of the EU; the President of Eurospace; the President of ESOA.

This year, organizers emphasize the need to examine the future of Europe in Space at the start of the European Union’s Multiannual Financial Framework for the years 2014-20, and the critical decisions the EU and the European Space Agency must make in order to pursue the current EU space programmes, such as EGNOS, Galileo and Copernicus, and to launch new initiatives, such as Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST).

The conference is free and aimed at decisionmakers in EU governance and industry as well as members of the public, but everyone must register online by January 22, 2014. Those who do not register by that date should contact the conference organizers by email at the address below.
Email:spaceconference@b-bridge.eu
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On 05 December 2013 a new proposal call for ‘TanDEM-X Intermediate DEM’ products was launched by DLR.

The call is related to the scientific utilisation of the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) products of the TanDEM-X mission of the first global coverage (IDEM). Your proposal must be submitted to a web form provided on the TanDEM-X Science Service System home page, available at: https://tandemx-science.dlr.de

The data for this proposal call will be delivered free of charge for all approved proposals.
The due date for this proposal call is 12 March 2014.
If you have any questions concerning this call for proposals, please contact the TanDEM-X Science Coordination team at: tandemx-science@dlr.de.
For more information click here
Source “EOportal” and DLR

Coordinating an alliance of the world’s leading industry trade associations, the Society of Satellite Professionals International announced today the launch of a global campaign to change the global conversation about satellite.

Called the Industry Message Summit, the effort aims to focus attention on the industry’s striking contributions to human welfare, safety and prosperity around the world. The alliance of industry associations, including the European Satellite Operators’ Association (Brussels), Global VSAT Forum (London) and Satellite Industry Association (Washington, DC), will drive the rebuilding of the “satellite brand” in support of the industry’s growth.

“This alliance has set a big goal: to refresh the image of one of the world’s most essential technologies, which has such profound impact at the human level,” said SSPI executive director Robert Bell, adding that the project will have both a short-term and long-term impact. “In the short term, we plan to make a contribution in the run-up to the WRC 2015 negotiations regarding spectrum allocations. Longer term, our priority is to change how we, as a global industry, view ourselves and collectively determine how to communicate our vitality and economic and social significance to those who benefit from it.”

During the past half-century, the satellite industry – once recognised by the words “Live via satellite” on every TV screen – has become almost invisible, except to its global base of current customers. While the world’s TV programming, business information, scientific data, weather information, safety, security and humanitarian traffic crosses the world’s satellite network, the contribution of that network to business, government and human welfare is unrecognised. Only in natural disaster, such as the Philippine typhoon, or in support of war does the word “satellite” appear relevant to the general media.

For more information click here

Source: SSPI and EO portal

[Via Satellite 12-05-13] The recently released 3-D map of the Great Barrier Reef created by the German company EOMAP in conjunction with James Cook University in Australia is one of the more unique projects in the Earth Observation arena. The map covers approximately 350,000 square kilometers at 30-meter horizontal resolution. With this project, EOMAP hopes to send a signal to the market about its ambitions that is as clear as its imaging.


“Not all people and organizations are fully aware of the capabilities [of Earth Observation],” said Thomas Heege, CEO of EOMAP. “When I founded the company there seemed to be a niche in this market and indeed you will not find many EO companies working in this field. The Great Barrier Reef was a good area – well known worldwide – to start with just to get more attention.”

EOMAP is a spinoff of the German Aerospace Center and was supported by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Business Incubation Center in Bavaria. Mapping the Great Barrier Reef was a strategic demonstration project; it’s waters have been difficult to chart due to the size and complexity of the reef, making it a hazard to ships and difficult for conservation efforts. Using LandSat 7, EOMAP was able to map the surface underneath the water, a process known as bathymetry, at a previously unreached level of detail.

“The process to derive bathymetry is called a physics-based process. That means we use satellite imagery not as imagery and then do some empirical relations to derive certain parameters, but we take up the calibrated satellite images,” explained Heege.

EOMAP’s Modular Inversion and Processing System (MIP), used for satellite-based observations, includes corrections for sun glitter, water depth and albedo from the sea floor and nearby coastlines. The company has traditionally taken projects on an individual basis, but now it hopes to shift from working on a case-by-case schedule to an off-the-shelf method.

“The Great Barrier Reef was one of our first larger areas where we did not work just on behalf of a certain project demanded by a client, but as a demonstrative project,” said Heege. “We expect that for the Great Barrier Reef and other regions worldwide, that if you create the product already, it is much easier for interested users and clients to take it up in the process.”

Most of EOMAP customers come from energy and government markets, which find the company’s bathymetry products particularly useful. “We have industries, for example Shell, or BP or Woodside energy [as customers]. We’ve done contracts for them so they’ve already [experienced] significant savings from bathymetry,” said Heege. “We also have governmental [customers] and for the Great Barrier Reef we expect both sides [to be interested], but initially I think we expect more government take-up because it is a national park.”

Geographies, naturally, play a big part in determining the type of customer. “It depends on the region,” said Heege. “On some regions we have more industrial users; in others, more governmental. In Mexico, we mapped the whole Yucatán coastline down to Belize, for an environmental industry. In the Caspian [Sea] it’s industrial and in the Arabian [Sea] it’s a mix.”

Mapping the Great Barrier Reef marks a turning point from which EOMAP hopes to support future demands with an existing suite of products. “We will have many areas of the work in our off-the-shelf database so clients can directly go and get the bathymetry products they need,” said Heege. The company works with a variety of EO satellite operators including ESA, RapidEye and DigitalGlobe to collect bathymetric observations. EOMAP has used DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 2 satellite and NASA/USGS’s Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 satellites for high quality 2-meter resolution mapping in the past. Now the company is readying itself for the Sentinel 2 satellites, in development by ESA, to provide more complete coverage. EOMAP is working together with the German Aerospace Center and ESA to build the infrastructure necessary to use Sentinel 2.

“Quickbird (a DigitalGlobe satellite) is getting a little older now and the calibration is not as stable. As we see more well calibrated satellites available we can implement them to make more area available,” said Heege. “[Today our] satellite coverage is not yet good enough so we simply don’t have worldwide coverage of the capable areas. This will significantly increase awareness, and we will have a much better worldwide coverage, which we cannot have yet.” From there the company will be able to create a large enough off-the-shelf index, and will use it as the primary method of selling EO data.

Source “EOmap“http://www.eomap.de and satellite.today

27-28 February 2014 – Apulia Region, Italy

NEREUS and its member region Apulia will organize an international workshop aimed at presenting how space uses and applications respond to a number of societal and economic challenges of the everyday life. Bringing together the demand and supply side of space services, the idea is to better understand regional needs and potential benefits of an increased uptake.

The event, mainly addressed to European regions, local authorities and their stakeholders, will feature interventions by representatives of the European Commission, Space Agencies as well as representatives from the academic, research and industrial sectors to share knowledge, experiences and expertise. Thematic and best practice sessions, Region-to-Region (R2R) meetings and round table debates will animate the 2-day event.

A special session will be dedicated to students and young professionals, giving them the opportunity to meet representatives from European institutions, industry and academic sector. Final an exceptional “Space Exhibition” will highlight regional, national and European space activities.

A dedicated programme will give all of you, and accompanying people, the opportunity to visit and discover the most striking tourist attractions of the Region: from the blue sea of the Adriatic cost to the heart of the country side with its elegant baroque towns, and the typical white-washed « trullo »houses.

Please find attached the provisional programme.