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(March 2013)A satellite platform, ESA’s Sentinel-3, has been reached an important milestone. It has been delivered to Prime Contractor in France and will be installed and made up for a mission to monitor earth.

Once complete, Sentinel-3 will host an array of a state of the art instruments which focuses on the measurement of different aspects of marine environments and land, as well as atmosphere and cryosphere. The first Sentinel-3 satellite is due to be launched in 2014 and in the second half of this year, it will have its array of instruments installed before going through a stringent testing programme in preparation for launch.

Furthermore, within an operationally robust and sustained near-realtime system, Sentinel-3 will provide policymakers and public authorities with the knowledge required to take decisions with confidence, prepare environmental legislation and policies, monitor their implementation and assess their socio-economic impacts and benefits.

Read more at European Space Agency

An official OGC Best Practice document entitled, “OGC EO Product Collection, Service and Sensor Discovery using the CS-WebRIM Catalogue” was adopted by the Open Geospatial Consortium.

This OGC Best Practices Document describes the relations that exist between several metadata conceptual models: Earth Observation (EO) Product, EO Product Collections, Sensors and Services. Specification of the linking between artifacts of these types is important for the process of cataloguing and discovering those artifacts.

During the Heterogeneous Missions Accessibility (HMA) series of projects managed by the European Space Agency (ESA), the HMA stakeholders defined a minimal set of metadata elements that are required to describe a collection of EO products. The stakeholders also defined a minimal set of metadata elements required to describe the different Web service instances that are being deployed throughout the Ground Segments of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) Contributing Missions.

The OGC EO Product Collection, Service and Sensor Discovery using the CS-W ebRIM Catalogue document is available and free to the public at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/bp

Read more at OGC

The International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” published the March 2013 issue of their Newsletter, which is available online

The issue highlights among other topics the presentation of the International Charter’s Universal Access initiative during the 2013 session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee (STSC) of the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) organized by UNOOSA.

The Newsletter also touches on issues such as the RADARSAT Constellation, 2012 activation statistics and the December 2012 flooding in the UK.

Read more at International Charter March 2013 Newsletter

Over the period March 22-24, 2013, northern and western regions of Ukraine experienced a snowfall equal to the monthly norm. The amount of snow and rising temperatures significantly increased the risk of potential floods.

The state of emergency was declared in Kiev and its neighboring regions by local authorities due to the storm and high flood risk. According to the resolution no. 58922/59/1-11 from 12 February 2013, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine requires all local authorities to take all measures to be prepared for the floods.

UN-SPIDER’s Regional Support Office in Ukraine made a request to NASA to acquire images from the EO-1 satellite over the Kyiv region. The image was taken on March 29, 2013 at 07:59UTC, and was made available at about 11:25UTC, thus ensuring fast access and delivery of the satellite data. The image and products were delivered to the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) and local authorities responsible for dealing with the emergency.

Read more: UN-SPIDER RSO Ukraine

Source UN-Spider

The “Charter Geographic Tool” was developed by the Charter member CNES (French National Centre for Space Studies) in order to establish a comprehensive record of all images acquired by the Charter members in response to Charter activations, as the international mechanism reports in its latest newsletter.

Over and above the utility of such a record as an internal tool to the Charter, the main user requirement driving the development came from actors across the disaster management cycle to know where image data had been acquired during a given activation.

Since the creation of the International Charter „Space and Major Disasters? in 2000, images have been acquired by around 20 different Earth Observation satellites. Of this, over 4000 metadata files have been ingested in the catalogue by the Charter agencies.

The Charter Geographic Tool consists of three main components:

  • An image metadata catalogue based on PostgreSQL
    A FTP site which manages the harvesting of the metadata files uploaded by the Charter agencies
  • A web interface based on the mapshup framework. This user-friendly interface allows to search and browse the metadata catalogue by activation, date and hazard type.

The tool is accessible online

Source UN-Spider

During the new Iranian calendar year which started on March 21, Iran plans to launch seven satellites into space, Hamid Fezeli,Head of the Iran Space Agency (ISA) said.

The Nahid, a satellite which is designed by experts at the research centre of ISA with the cooperation of the scientists from Amirkabir University of Technology, is one of the satellites that is scheduled to be launched among the seven.

Other satellites that are scheduled for launching are the Fajr (Dawn), the Zafar (Triumph), and Mesbah. Fajr will be used to facilitate activities related to agriculture, conservation of natural resources and forests, management of natural disasters and other data collection purposes, the ISA chief said.

Read more: Press TV

Source UN-Spider

In April 9th, Meteosat-9 took over the rapid scanning imagery service (RSS) from Meteosat-8.

This completes the reassignment of roles of the three Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites following the launch of Meteosat-10 on 5 July.

After being replaced in January by Meteosat-10 as the prime operational satellite supplying full disk images of Europe and Africa, Meteosat-9 now provides the RSS, delivering more frequent images every five minutes over Europe only. The two-satellite system continues the services previously delivered by Meteosat-8 and -9 in support of weather forecasters in one of their most challenging tasks, nowcasting, which involves detecting and monitoring rapidly developing high impact weather like thunderstorms or fog and issuing related warnings up to 12 hours ahead.

Meanwhile, the residual capabilities of the ageing Meteosat-8 are being assessed to determine how far it can serve as a backup for Meteosat-9 and -10.

Source Eumetsat

(March 20). The PlanetObserver team is happy to announce the release of PlanetDEM 30, a new Digital Elevation Model (DEM) covering the entire Earth at 30-meter resolution, offering accurate, homogeneous and voidfree data.

PlanetDEM 30 is a fusion of 30-meter ASTER Global DEM v2.0 and PlanetDEM 90, PlanetObserver high quality 90-meter global DEM product. Further to an extensive R&D programme, PlanetObserver has developed exclusive data fusion processes. Based on this proprietary technology, PlanetObserver has produced PlanetDEM 30, a 100% global product, totally free of ASTER GDEM residual anomalies and artifacts that highly affected overall data quality.

Used as a major source to correct and enhance ASTER GDEM data, PlanetDEM 90 is a unique global elevation product developed by PlanetObserver. Based on the combination of 90-meter SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) data v4.1 corrected and completed with cartographic data, this highly accurate product has already been acquired by major players of the spatial and defence industry.

PlanetDEM 30 overall accuracy is a major asset for all applications, even the most sensitive. This worldwide 3D reference dataset is ideal for Defence, orthorectification, mapping, weather systems, terrain modelling applications, energy exploration and geology, just to name a few sectors.

PlanetDEM 30 broadens PlanetDEM product suite, PlanetObserver range of elevation data.

About PlanetObserver
PlanetObserver offers a full range of value-added geospatial products : global imagery mosaics in natural colours with a unique visual quality and truly global high quality Digital Elevation Models. All products are developed internally, backed up by PlanetObserver’s know-how in geospatial data processing and over 20 years of technological expertise.
PlanetObserver imagery and terrain products are perfect for numerous commercial, military and consumer applications, ranging from web-mapping to 3D visualization and simulation solutions, flight simulation, cartographic mapping to audio-visual production.
Contact
www.planetobserver.com

Under the umbrella of the thirty-third session of the United Nations Inter-Agency Meeting (IAM) on Outer Space Activities this week in Geneva, UNOOSA and the United Nations Office for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) organized the 10th Open Informal Session entitled: “Space and Disaster Risk Reduction: Planning for Resilient human settlements.”

The session was inaugurated by Ms. Margareta Wahlström, Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction; Mr. Niklas Hedman, Chief of the Committee Policy and Legal Affairs Section of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and Ms. Helena Molin-Valdes, Coordinator of the “Making Cities Resilient Campaign” of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

The session, open to delegations of Member States and other organizations of the United Nations system, included two panels:

  • Towards resilient cities: A wider use of geospatial data in urban planning;
  • Mainstreaming space technology in land use planning and rural development strategies for effective disaster management.

The panels included keynote presentations by the Information Technology Agreement Committee on Underground Space of the International Tunneling and Underground Space Association (ITA-AITES) and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery of the World Bank (GFDRR). These were complemented with comments and presentations by representatives of UN-HABITAT, UNISDR, UNITAR-UNOSAT, UNOOSA/UN-SPIDER, EC-COPERNICUS and the University of Eastern Paris, Marne-la-Vallee.

The session provided an opportunity for representatives of Diplomatic Missions in Geneva to become aware of the usefulness of space-based applications in disaster-risk reduction and for all participants to discuss ways to promote the use of such applications in countries exposed to natural hazards, including through efforts within the “Making Cities Resilient”-campaign of UNISDR and the upcoming session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction which will take place on 19-23 May 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland.

All background documents and presentations are available online on the website of the United Nations Coordination of Outer Space Activities (“UNCOSA:http://www.uncosa.unvienna.org/uncosa/en/iamos/index.html).

Source

(Source EURISY, March 2013) A mix of satellite images, in-situ measurements and air quality models are used to detect air pollutants and guide city authorities in improving traffic management to reduce emissions.

The city

Antwerp is the capital and the largest municipality of the Antwerp province in Flanders, Belgium. The Urban Development department of the city, depending from the Flemish Environmental Agency, is the entity in charge of monitoring air and noise pollution at the local level.

The challenge

Antwerp is particularly affected by air pollution generated by the eight-lane motorway passing near the city centre, its important seaport, as well as by the presence of the second petrochemical industry worldwide. Moreover, the high buildings located in the city centre create street canyons where noise and pollutants are especially concentrated.

Every year, the Flemish Environmental Agency produces reports on the concentration levels of different pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, NO2, BC) present in city hotspots. Such reports, based on measurements at the street level, inform on the situation in previous years. However, they do not include the forecasts which the Municipality needs to devise adequate future traffic management plans to reduce emissions and noise.

The satellite solution

In 2010, the Municipality contracted VITO, a research institution, for an air pollution assessment study based on a combination of satellite images, ground sensors and air quality models. On the basis of this data, combined with the noise pollution maps of the Municipality, “black-spots” were identified, where air and noise pollution are highest. Not surprisingly, these black spots were found to occur in areas with the highest traffic concentration.

Thanks to the combination of satellite imagery and air quality models, which are able to capture relevant information on street topography, the new maps did not only provide assessments on current noise and air pollution, but also allowed city managers to make predictions about the impact of different traffic scenarios on air quality in the future.

The result

The traffic scenario assessment system, created in 2010, allowed city managers to make predictions about the impact of different traffic scenarios on air quality in the future and to priorities areas where intervention to curb traffic was most needed.

As a result, the Municipality decided to make changes in traffic circulation and speed limits, to increase the number of eco-friendly buses, to increase supervision and regulation of industrial emissions and to create a low emission zone in the centre of Antwerp.

In the future, the municipality aims at updating these maps every five years.

“The traffic scenario assessment system based on satellite and ground measurements enables us to take better-informed decisions to improve traffic management in Antwerp”, Jan Bel, City of Antwerp, Urban Development, Energy & Environment.

Source EURISY