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Tonight at dinner you might not think about poverty, hunger, and poor nutrition, but unfortunately that’s not the case for one in nine people in the world. About 815 million people are going to bed hungry. It makes sense that one of the greatest challenges we are facing today is how to ensure global Food Security and achieve Zero Hunger, one of the UN’s Sustainable Developments Goals (SDG 2).

Investing in smallholders is key to address food security, among them are many of the rural poor, vulnerable to risks. In the project “Improving Agricultural Risk Management in Sub-Saharan Africa: Remote Sensing for Index Insurance” we investigated ways to improve agricultural insurance for smallholder farmers by using remote sensing.

IFAD AND THE IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE

Smallholder farmers currently produce 70 per cent of Africa’s food supply and 80 per cent of the food consumed in Africa and Asia. However, smallholders are vulnerable to a range of individual and widespread risks. Climate-related production risks trap households in poverty and food insecurity. Without tools to manage these risks, rural and agricultural development is hindered. Agricultural insurance schemes can play an important role as part of an holistic approach to rural development, by both protecting investments in smallholder farming as well as encouraging them.

Index insurance – a type of agricultural insurance – is based on yield loss data, instead of individual, on-farm insurer visits. This makes agricultural insurance more accessible to smallholders. The standardized nature of the product also means it can be packaged with other services, such as credit or seeds, to form a comprehensive agricultural risk management and rural development strategy.

IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development of the United Nations, has been improving access of poor rural people to finance for over forty years. As part of this, since 2008, IFAD has been specializing in agricultural insurance.

DATA ACCESS! NOT ALWAYS STRAIGHTFORWARD

Index insurance is usually designed and operated using on-the-ground data, namely historical and contemporary weather and yield data. However, one of the main challenges to develop robust index insurance products is availability, accessibility, quantity and quality of these ground data sets.

The project was designed to contribute to scalable and sustainable approaches to index insurance. More specifically, it assessed if and how remote sensing could be used for index insurance to benefit smallholder farmers.

THE POTENTIAL OF REMOTE SENSING FOR INDEX INSURANCE

To overcome the above mentioned limitations of ground-based data, index insurance developers are turning to remote sensing approaches making use of the objective measurements and spatial coverage of EO data. However, despite the significant experience developed in drought insurance, applications for smallholders’ cropping activities are relatively new, and remote sensing data is not yet being used to its full potential for index insurance.

So how can we use the massive amounts of available EO data? During this project we investigated how remote sensing can contribute to index insurance by addressing, amongst others, the following questions:

- What are the remote sensing methodology options and their possible combinations?
- Which remotely sensed data is best suited for which crops?
- How can the solutions be used operationally in index insurance?

“Transforming rural areas into dynamic economies has an enormous potential and can greatly contribute to ending hunger and extreme poverty, and offer an alternative to migration.” – Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

IMPACT IN THE FIELD

Ultimately index insurance is important to help rural households and their related enterprises become more productive and resilient to shocks. Earth observation data or derived information products can contribute to index insurance solutions by either supplementing the ground-based data indices or creating potential alternatives. Accuracy of the developed index is influenced by:
- Methodology
- Crop
- Crop type
- Region
- Availability and quality of the ground data

Detailed information on the results can be found can be found in Remote sensing for index insurance: findings and lessons learned for smallholder agriculture and in an accompanying overview.

SCALING-UP INDEX INSURANCE

The project taught us that in order to further develop remote sensing for index insurance it is recommended that:

- Additional research and development activities be supported to further improve the potential of remote sensing for index insurance.
- Further investment be made in ground data collection protocols, capacity, and systems.
- Different remote sensing approaches, dedicated mapping tools, and ground level sources of data and information be combined to improve the quality of index insurance structures.
- Future initiatives focus on developing proper segmentation of the size of the insured area
- Schemes based on remotely sensed data be carefully planned for measures aimed at mitigating the occurrence of basis risk events (the potential mismatch between the payout and the losses incurred).
- Capacity be built of private and public remote sensing institutions in order to fill gaps in currently available expertise and ensure future sustainability.

IFAD is now working on further scaling-up index insurance and will draw on the knowledge generated in the project thanks to its partners – including VITO – who have helped us better understand the potential uses of remote sensing for agricultural development.

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About the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI)
CRCSI is an international research and development centre set up in 2003 under the Australian Government Business Cooperative Research Centres Programme. CRCSI conducts user-driven research in spatial information that addresses issues of national importance in Australia and New Zealand. There partners include government agencies, universities and over 50 companies.

Could you tell us a bit about the history of CRCSI?

The Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information, or CRCSI, is about 15 years old and was set up under the Cooperative Research Centres Programme of the Australian Commonwealth Government. CRCSI’s formation was initially conceived as a key recommendation from spatial information industry leaders. The government of the time had targetted the spatial industry for development and growth and a group representing the spatial industry saw a cooperative research centre as one key pillar to link industry, education and government. Since it commenced in July 2003 CRCSI has focussed on building critical mass in research initiatives between these three sectors to tackle major end-user driven challenges using spatial technologies. Our technical focus has traditionally been on data infrastructures, positioning and the extraction of information from data. The CRCSI continues to have a keen focus on earth observation and its application in areas of natural resource management, agriculture, built environment and construction, health and defence. We have conducted hundreds of research projects in every Australian jurisdiction and continue to focus on applied collaborative research development and innovation. We have developed strong international links through our partner base and have built a strong collaboration with New Zealand. The CRCSI is now an organisation truly spanning both countries.

You are dedicated to addressing market failures and supporting critical spatial infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand. What have been so far your greatest achievements and challenges?

We constantly face the challenge of addressing the changing needs of our partners and aligning our collaborative research with the rapid advances in technology. Transferring innovative research and proven concepts into operation is a significant challenge, so too is dealing with cross-jurisdictional issues, at least in the Australian and New Zealand context. In terms of achievements, we are very pleased with the improved collaboration between industry, government and the academic sectors coming from our activities of the past 15 years. We are also very proud of the success our partners have had as a result of further developing and implementing our research outcomes. To name but a few examples the CRCSI led the initial thinking and research of the: national positioning infrastructure and its development, this is now well underway; implementation of creative commons licencing and digital rights management; work on large-scale earth observation data processing, as well as the sea level rise methodologies, data sets and tools that have been created by our partners. We also take pride in the training of PhDs and post doctorate researchers, our strong scientific publication record in print and commercial success through licencing and the spinoff of several companies.

In the EO services sector, governments can have a strong influence over the way business develops. Aside from being a good customer, what’s the one other thing the Australian government can do to support the development of the sector?

Government can play a lead role in acting as a catalyst for innovation. Government also has a role to play in encouraging industry development through its procurement policies. There is presently a strong focus on policies and data infrastructures, which encourage and promote open data and access and will stimulate innovation both within government as well as across industry. One example is Digital Earth Australia, which is built upon the open data cube architecture and will soon be serving up a wide range of data and data products to both government and industry.

What are the main issues you consider may affect the evolution of the Australian market you are addressing and where do you see the greatest opportunities for growth?

The greatest opportunities for growth in the Australian EO market is in the use of its data by mainstream business as well as government. This will occur in combination with other data sources including other spatial data. It will impact beyond our traditional industry sectors. The Improved temporal and spatial resolution of EO data are only one of the enablers. The presence of enhanced storage, analytic and transfer capabilities of the cloud environments means the data is now more accessible than ever. The addition of new analytics capabilities, including machine learning, open the door for vastly improved predictive capabilities. Issues of accessibility and data being fit-for-purpose remain but are being progressively overcome.

Australia and the EU are currently cooperating to ensure data from Copernicus delivers economic, environmental and societal benefits. Can you give us an example of how this cooperation could impact the Australian EO industry?

The biggest effect is in increasing the quantity and quality of available data and this intrinsically means there is a large opportunity to develop applications for business. In particular, having Copernicus data in Australia is a game changer in terms of data availability and timeliness in relation to radar and optical imagery. The increased availability of public and private data offerings means that new applications can be built that were not possible before, there will also be the opportunity to enhance the value of existing products. I see a broader range of applications and products being developed over the next few years that will become a part of everyday life, much like mapping and positioning are now used on mobile devices in ways we never really thought about ten years ago. The fusion of EO data with other data sets is where I think the greatest potential lies.

You also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop synergies and strengthen cooperation in business, research and technology between Australia and Europe in the utilisation of EO technology. Which element of cooperation in this MoU is the most important for you? What is the added value of such a MoU?

Our interests are very much aligned in this MoU, which for me is extremely important. MoUs signal a mutual desire to work towards a common goal, and in this instance the pragmatic outcome will be initially the development of joint Horizon 2020 (H2020) earth observation applications. The key ingredients of success really do exist alongside this MoU, meaning there will be a very high likelihood of action. From our perspective these are (1) aligned needs in terms of maximising the benefits and applications from this fantastic infrastructure and data source (Copernicus), (2) evidence of existing collaboration through the Copernicus datahub, (3) a group of companies and organisations having the collective will to cooperate, (4) a joint funding mechanism from which to seed new applications development (H2020), (5) a growing industry, and lastly (6) resources in both Europe and Australia to facilitate it happening.

What are CRCSI’s and your future goals?

The CRCSI has reached a crossroads as our CRC programme funding winds up in June. However, our partner base wish for us to continue and we are working with them right now to deliver innovative collaborative user driven research across Australia and New Zealand. We are also taking this opportunity to improve our engagement model, refresh our research programs and align more closely with our partners’ strategies. Our new incarnation will be taking across a strong transitioning research portfolio as well as expanding into new areas of research.

Short Biography

Graeme is CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI) and was previously Deputy CEO where he was responsible for CRCSI operations, including finance, compliance, legals, corporate governance, business development and commercialisation.
Prior to the CRCSI, Graeme worked at RMIT University where he was charged with identifying technologies with potential for commercial exploitation and facilitating their transfer, primarily in biotechnology and information technology. He routinely negotiated commercial agreements, implemented commercial strategies with alliance partners and provided assistance in intellectual property management, project planning and route-to-market strategies.
Graeme has a PhD and Bachelor of Agricultural Science (1st Class Hons) from the University of Melbourne, a Masters of Business Administration from Deakin University, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Corporate Governance. He has successfully completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.

Today we travel back in time, to March 24th 1998. It is exactly 20 years ago that the first VEGETATION instrument was launched on board the SPOT 4 satellite.

20 years may go unnoticed in the evolution of the Earth, but leaves its footprint in the lifespan of a man. Not only because of the immense technological progress that was made, but even more for the growing importance remote sensing and geo-information play nowadays in our daily life.

Dominant land cover from the Global Land Cover for the year 2000 (GLC2000, Bartholome & Belward, 2005)

SDGS OF THE SEVENTIES

Growing awareness of the interdependence of environment, economy and social well-being resulted in 1972 in the Stockholm Conference, the first UN Conference calling upon all countries to manage the environment for the benefit of present and future generations. In 1992 the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 followed, and later in 2000, The Millennium Declaration on Environment and Development with its Millennium Development Goals.

The goal to monitor our environment and safeguard our livelihoods stressed the need for a European long-term commitment of space-based environmental monitoring services, as put forward by the Baveno Manifesto in 1998, the starting point of the GMES initiative, in 2012 renamed to the famous COPERNICUS programme.

24 MARCH 1998! THE BIRTH OF GLOBAL VEGETATION MONITORING

Our great and ambitious adventure started in 1997, a year prior to the successful launch, when the VITO Centre for Remote Sensing and Atmospheric processes (now called VITO Remote Sensing) signed its first CTIV contract (Centre de Traitement des Images de SPOT Végétation) with OSTC (now BELSPO), as part of the SPOT VEGETATION programme financed by the European Commission, France, Belgium, Sweden and Italy.

The VEGETATION programme was setup to ensure daily global vegetation monitoring by imaging our Earth’s surface with a spatial resolution of 1 km. The programme was very ambitious, demonstrating European operational leadership in delivering high quality Earth observation products to end users in less than 24 hours after image acquisition.
With 10 motived image processing experts we were ready to be a part of this challenging mission, busy controlling the production and distribution entities and operating the central image processing and archiving center, working in close collaboration with our Swedish and French colleagues.

Since 1998 we’ve grown to a group of more than 150 professionals, working in the remote sensing and environmental monitoring research units. Satellite image processing in all its forms is still a core business, but in the meantime it is also complemented with new technological research in the field of airborne data and the development of innovative information products and services.

A JOURNEY TOWARDS FULL, FREE AND OPEN DATA

To support the European GMES initiative, the VEGETATION programme implemented a free data policy in 2001, promoting the free distribution of its premium product, the 10 day synthesis VGT-S10. With its VEGA 2000 project, the CTIV processed global data acquired by the VEGETATION instrument for the year 2000. This was distributed for free to over 30 research teams across the world. But there was no cloud storage in 2000! Shipment in those days was still done via DVD and SDLT as per request. The general objective of the VEGA 2000 data set was to generate a harmonized land cover database over the entire globe for the year 2000, the year being a reference year for environmental assessment in relation to the United Nations’ international conventions. Under guidance of the EC Joint Research Centre, the VEGA 2000 images finally resulted in the Global Land Cover 2000 data set.

This free and open data policy was later on fully incorporated in EC directives “Communication on open data” (2011) and “re-use of public sector information” (2013).

Over the years, VEGETATION satellite data has been used in a wide variety of research projects to monitor the global land surface (e.g. Geoland, BOSS4GMES), the carbon cycle and forests (GlobCarbon, GSE Forest Monitoring) and agriculture and food security (Global Monitoring for Food Security).

Benefiting from the results of several research projects, and responding to the growing economic and societal needs, the Earth observation data and derived information products found their way into operational services for the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, notably the Global component of the Copernicus Land Service, Copernicus Climate Change Service, the Monitoring of Agriculture with Remote Sensing or MARS.
But also abroad, for instance by United Nations and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Effectively serving thousands, around the world.

That’s why we love what we do. Offering useful tools and consumable information to assist end users in making evidence-based decisions for sustainable development.

LOOKING BACK TO LOOK AHEAD

On May 7, 2013 ESA’s small satellite PROBA-V was launched. With its 1-km, 300-m and 100-m resolutions, this instrument is the successor of the SPOT VEGETATION 1 and 2 instruments, carefully continuing the global vegetation daily time series for more than 20 years now. PROBA-V was designed as the gap filler between SPOT VEGETATION and the Sentinel satellites of ESA, and as the precursor of the SLSTR instrument on SENTINEL-3.

The CTIV catalogue of the late 90ties has now evolved into a modern multi-mission VITO Product Distribution Portal , giving users free access to several data products a.o. SPOT-VEGETATION, ENVISAT-Meris, PROBA-V, AVHRR, Sentinel data.

Via the online product distribution portal, users can:
- consult the data via an interactive Geo Viewer or Time Series Viewer
- make their own composites with the N-daily Compositor
- request a Virtual Machine to create their own virtual research environment and work on the data with a powerful set of tools and libraries
- develop and debug test applications

Nanosatellites and CubeSats, drones, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Some of the technological innovations rushing by and transforming the geospatial information market. We are now in the middle of the transition from mass production of data and images to mass customization, with web information services, personalized products and user-centric solutions.

WatchIT grow is an online platform which combines several types of data (e.g. satellite, drone, weather and soil data) to monitor and increase potato yields in a sustainable way.

Together with colleagues from universities, the industry and relevant public bodies, we concentrate on developing new applications for our clients and try out new business models. We have extended our playing field from the national and European scene to the international and worldwide market.

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Open-source code developed by a Penn State graduate could improve weather forecasting and a range of other research endeavors that rely on pairing atmospheric models with satellite imagery.

Yanni Cao, who earned her master’s degree in geography in 2016, developed the code while a member of Penn State’s Geoinformatics and Earth Observation laboratory (GEOlab) as a way to fix errors created when satellite data is combined with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The work was done in collaboration with her adviser, Guido Cervone, head of GEOLab, associate professor of geoinformatics and associate director of the Institute for CyberScience, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

To streamline calculations, the commonly used WRF model — like most — assumes the Earth is a perfect sphere. Yet satellites capture a more realistic oblate spheroid shape of the Earth, as planets are bulged due to gravity and rotation. Inaccuracies in calculations are caused by shifting locations of models from a perfect sphere to the observational data on Earth that flattens near the poles and bulges around the equator.

“The basic idea is that the Earth is not a perfect sphere,” said Cao. “In order to make easy computations, most, if not all, weather models see the Earth as a perfect sphere. However, most of the remote sensing systems see the Earth as a spheroid. There is a difference between the two. When you use spheroid geographic coordinate systems with a spherical model, a mismatch is created.”

This is widely known to cause calculation errors, Cao said, but those errors are more pronounced when models are set to run with high spatial resolution. For example, location errors of up to 13 miles were introduced into the WRF model when it was run at a .6-mile grid size, causing errors in temperature and other weather variables, particularly near mountains and bodies of water.

To analyze these errors and develop a methodology that fixes these issues, Cao analyzed an area of the U.S. that is about 17,000 square miles. She used the WRF model under three scenarios: low resolution satellite data, high resolution satellite data, and then WRF-corrected data using the code she created. Cao selected an area in the northeast United States because it contained large elevation gradients and diverse land-use patterns such as forests, urban areas and wetlands.

She used the data to quantify how pairing WRF models with differing satellite resolutions has an impact on projecting meteorological variables such as temperature, wind direction, wind speed and atmospheric mixing ratios.

“While some of these errors can be small, they still introduce bias into the model output,” Cao said. “For very high resolutions simulations, these biases are compounded and can lead to significant errors in the model results.”

Her results show that the mismatch resulted in errors in the model results for each variable.

Cao used this methodology to improve the accuracy of models for methane emissions and now works as a data scientist detecting methane leaks for Picarro, a private company based in Silicon Valley.

Cervone added that the code will be beneficial in a range of research areas. “This research fits well with questions being investigated at NCAR, which is why researchers there were so interested in advancing this new tool,” said Cervone. “And it will only prove to be even more useful as high resolution satellite imaging becomes more commonplace.”

The research was published in Geoscientific Model Development and was partially funded by the Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research.

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Europe collects increasingly more data, enhancing our understanding of the environment. Earth observation data obtained through the European Union’s Copernicus programme presents new challenges and opportunities to improve our environmental knowledge. Combining up-to-date Copernicus data with our existing knowledge base, the European Environment Agency (EEA) aims to empower policy makers and citizens across Europe in taking measures to address local, national and global challenges.

Since the first pieces of environmental legislation were adopted in Europe in the 1970s, public authorities have been monitoring and recording different elements to understand environmental issues and trends. In some cases, even citizen groups, such as birdwatchers, have collected data to support nature conservation. EU legislation often sets specific parameters to measure progress towards the targets set in the legislation. Today, European countries monitor and report significant amounts of comparable data, ranging from greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere to municipalities’ recycling rates.

The knowledge and understanding of environmental issues have gradually grown along with the number of data flows on specific issues. As our knowledge grew, so did our awareness and understanding of the strong links between thematic and sectoral observations. Consequently, European policies have evolved from issue-specific legislation to wider, systemic policy packages.

Mainly through its Eionet network, the European Environment Agency currently works with more than 100 different data flows involving up to several hundred institutional partners in 39 countries. These highly comparable and coherent data sets have helped us understand some key issues affecting the state of Europe’s environment.

Understanding the knowns and the unknowns

Despite these significant gains in our knowledge, observations and data streams still remain to some extent fragmented across topics, time and space. Almost all the assessments we have published in recent years, including our latest state of the environment report (SOER 2015), stress the complex and global nature of key environmental problems, as well as the interlinkages between them. It is impossible to understand air pollution without considering what happens on land and in the oceans. Similar limitations exist when we focus on an area.

For example, thousands of monitoring stations across Europe collect air samples at a given frequency, analyse and report concentration levels of key air pollutants. This data flow is a major step towards a better understanding of the quality of the air we breathe. Nevertheless, it remains limited to time-specific readings that are only fully relevant within meters of that monitoring station.

The air quality in the areas between monitoring stations has been relatively unknown until recently. Satellite observations and increasingly more accurate computer modelling of big data are changing this – and not only for air quality monitoring.

Combining satellite and in-situ data: Copernicus

The European Union has been investing in earth observation through its Copernicus programme, which involves not only high-resolution satellite imagery but also in-situ observations collected through sensors on the ground and in the soil, weather balloons, buoys and deep ocean sensors, for example. Copernicus satellites can monitor and transmit a large spectrum of earth observation data, ranging from the chemical composition of the atmosphere to changes in vegetation during the growth season. All Copernicus data and information products are accessible online and free of charge.

Copernicus is organised around six services: atmosphere, marine environment, land, climate change, emergency management, and security. The European Commission is responsible for the overall coordination, while the implementation of individual core services involves all the main key earth-observation actors in Europe. Since 2012, the European Environment Agency has been coordinating the pan-European and local components of the land monitoring service, supporting applications in a variety of domains, such as spatial planning, forest management, water management, nature conservation, and agriculture. The EEA is also coordinating the Copernicus in-situ component across all core services.

The potential of what we can collectively achieve with these data is immense. By combining an increasing number of data sets, we are able to understand better what is happening where, why it is happening, and who will be affected by it and how. Imagine monitoring changes in water quantity in areas across Europe as detailed as 10 by 10 meters, or how the crop production will be affected in the short run and when factoring in the long-term impacts of climate change. Our Air Quality Index with up-to-the-minute data could be developed further to include accurate air quality projections with shifts in wind or other weather patterns factored in.

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On 03 March 2018, on the occasion of the International Space Exploration Forum (ISEF2), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) held an Inter-Agency Meeting to discuss furthering their bilateral cooperation.

In the meeting JAXA and ESA announced a joint statement concerning the results of the studies of the Joint Working Groups established last May and future collaboration between the two agencies.

On 02 March 2018, JAXA President Naoki Okumura and ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Woerner held a meeting in Tokyo at the occasion of the 2nd International Space Exploration Forum (ISEF2). Both Heads of Agency reviewed the activities of two joint working groups which were defined in the Joint Statement signed on 15 May 2017, and confirmed progress and results achieved since May 2017.

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India: To allow the benefits of the European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation and Monitoring programme and of the Indian fleet of remote sensing satellites to extend beyond the borders of the partners, in Bangalore, on 19 March, the European Commission and India’s Department of Space signed a landmark Cooperation Arrangement related to sharing of Earth observation satellite data.

Philippe Brunet, Director for Space Policy, Copernicus and Defence signing the agreement with Dr PG Diwakar, Scientific Secretary, ISRO

The Copernicus programme provides a wide range of applications, e.g. climate change, land, ocean and atmosphere monitoring as well as support in the forecasting, management and mitigation of natural disasters. Its full, free and open data policy has proven its merits by allowing the development of a thriving user base in Europe and beyond. On the other hand, India has developed an ambitious and wide-ranging Earth Observation programme which is managed by the Department of Space of India and implemented by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Recognising that data sharing will provide mutual benefits, in particular in the pursuit of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, the European Commission and India’s Department of Space (DOS), have decided to sign a Cooperation Arrangement with the aim to strengthen and stimulate cooperation on Earth observation and mutual access to the data from the European Union’s Sentinel series of satellites and from the Indian Earth observation satellites.

Under this arrangement, the European Commission intends to provide India with free, full and open access to the data from the Copernicus Sentinel family of satellites using high bandwidth connections from data hub to data hub. Reciprocally the Indian DOS will provide the Copernicus programme and its participating states with a free, full and open access to the data from ISRO’s Earth observation satellites including historical data sets. It is intended that ISRO’s satellite data will be made available for distribution on the European ‘Copernicus hub’. This comprises land, ocean and atmospheric series of ISRO’s civilian satellites (Oceansat-2, Megha-Tropiques, Scatsat-1, SARAL, INSAT-3D, INSAT-3DR) with the exception of commercial high-resolution satellites data.

The Cooperation Arrangement includes technical assistance for the establishment of high bandwidth connections with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sites, in particular through setting up of mirror servers, data storage and archival facilities. Considering the importance of in situ observations, which are complementary to space-based observations, the Indian DOS will facilitate access to in situ data from its regional observatory networks of geophysical and meteorological data, to support the enhancement of the Copernicus data architecture and towards the development of global products. ISRO will coordinate access to in situ data and promote the use of information and data provided by the Copernicus programme with various institutions and government agencies, particularly the environmental sector and all other users, including academia and the private sector.

This Cooperation Arrangement is also expected to lead to the development of an active downstream sector in the European Union and in India, as well as to joint product development. They aim at facilitating the involvement of diverse users in the development of products and services. In particular, both sides intend to encourage cooperation on data processing for common use in line with the EU-India Agenda for Action-2020, e.g. long-term management of natural resources, monitoring of marine and coastal areas, water resource management, impacts of climate variability and climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, food security and rural development, infrastructure for territorial development and health management issues.

Both sides support free, full and open access for end users to data and information from the Sentinel fleet and from the ISRO satellites specified in the Arrangement, and each side will fund its own activities and adhere to the principle of ‘no exchange of funds’.

The Cooperation Arrangement has been signed in Bangalore on 19 March by Mr Philippe Brunet, Director for Space Policy, Copernicus and Defence, on behalf of the European Commission and by Dr PG Diwakar, Scientific Secretary, ISRO on behalf of the Department of Space of India.
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A broadband radiometer instrument, designed and built in the UK with the aim of improving our understanding of the Earth’s climate, has been delivered to the EarthCARE mission team in Germany.

The broadband radiometer (BBR) is a scientific instrument for the Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite. It is a cutting-edge piece of engineering that will use three telescopes looking in three directions at once to study the radiance at the top of the atmosphere for better weather prediction. It will look at the relationship between clouds, aerosols and radiation and their combined effects on the Earth’s climate system.

This is the latest step towards completing the European Space Agency’s most complex Earth observation satellite.

Design, construction and testing of the BBR was led by Thales Alenia Space in the United Kingdom. RAL Space provided the thermal design for the telescope assembly as well as the optical, mechanical and electrical design for the whole instrument. Also, the majority of environmental testing, functional testing and instrument calibration was also performed at RAL Space facilities.

Dr Chris Mutlow, director of RAL Space said, “The BBR is an innovative and complex piece of engineering. I’m delighted that it’s now ready to be integrated with the EarthCARE spacecraft and look forward to the impact its observations will have on our ability to model and understand the processes involved in climate change.”

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Both large full size satellites as well as small satellites are now being used for various purposes around the globe. In addition, constellations of satellites are being developed for specific purposes, such as internet satellites. We also include here maritime surveillance that relies on Satellite Automatic Identification System (AIS) payload.

We queried a number of providers of both full size and small satellites as well as AIS to get an idea of what was available in the market.

Large Full-Size Satellites

European Space Imaging’s Robert Philipp. technical project manager on the Customer Support team, does a lot of work developing automated software for handling very high-resolution imagery with DigitalGlobe, MDA, and Space Imaging Middle East. He previously worked for Planet as a senior satellite data processing engineer and system operator.

“At European Space Imaging we are working with traditional full-sized satellites with a mass between 2000kg and 3000kg,” said Philipp.

While the company provides access to imagery from full-sized satellites, Philipp could speak to the pros and cons of small satellites also.

Pros:

-“The launch cost decreases significantly with decreasing satellite size. It is possible to bring them into orbit as secondary rocket payload and even launch several at once per launch. The record here is 88 sats in one launch.

- Production cost of a satellite decrease. As with decreasing size, the complexity of a satellite platform decreases as well and the cost of one satellite decreases.

-The development cycle can be shortened significantly. As with decreasing size, the complexity of a satellite platform decreases as well and it does not take that long to develop a successor to a satellite platform. Can even be shortened to several weeks.

-The temporal resolution increases due to the fact that the smaller a satellite becomes, they are sent into orbit as constellations more often and can, in the Earth Observation Business, acquire data over the same area more frequently.

-Redundancy. If a Nanosat goes out of order, there are very likely dozens of others still functioning properly in the same constellation. If a launch fails, the loss is not as significant as with full sized satellites.

Cons:

- Due to size limitations, the complexity and performance of a small sats is much less compared to full sized platforms.

-Reliability goes down with decreasing size. Redundant parts within the platform are excluded to keep costs low and due to size limitations and energy supply limitations. Developing a Nanosat becomes more and more function follows form approach.

-The life expectancy is less. Due to less fuel, or even the lack of, stable orbits cannot be maintained as long. Also the smaller batteries do have less life expectancies.

-Energy generation is limited due to smaller solar panels.

- Operation of huge fleets of satellites becomes too complex for manual operation and automated processes have to be implemented. Developing all these processes and systems takes time. If the developing cycle is too fast, it is hard to keep up with the development of the operating systems.

-Huge amount of redundant data gets acquired and has to be stored somewhere. So a lot more storage space is needed.”

When asked what types of tasks would be best addressed by large and small satellites, Philipps said: “High Resolution, Multispectral, Hyperspectral and RADAR observation satellites should be left for larger platforms. As well as Relay satellite platforms. Low or Medium resolution monitoring sats can be smaller. And communication sats can even be smaller.”

For the future of satellites in general, ESI sees a combination of larger satellites for RADAR, high resolution multi- or hyper-spectral earth observation combined with small satellites acquiring medium resolution data in the visible spectrum. Both will be sending their data through large relay sats.

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Susan Smith has worked as an editor and writer in the technology industry for over 16 years. As an editor she has been responsible for the launch of a number of technology trade publications, both in print and online. Currently, Susan is the Editor of GISCafe and AECCafe, as well as those sites’ … More »
GISCafe Special Coverage: The World of State-of-the-Art Satellites, Reusable Spacecraft and More
March 15th, 2018 by Susan Smith

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Both large full size satellites as well as small satellites are now being used for various purposes around the globe. In addition, constellations of satellites are being developed for specific purposes, such as internet satellites. We also include here maritime surveillance that relies on Satellite Automatic Identification System (AIS) payload.

Hamburg Port Rathaus, European Space Imaging

We queried a number of providers of both full size and small satellites as well as AIS to get an idea of what was available in the market.

Large Full-Size Satellites

European Space Imaging’s Robert Philipp. technical project manager on the Customer Support team, does a lot of work developing automated software for handling very high-resolution imagery with DigitalGlobe, MDA, and Space Imaging Middle East. He previously worked for Planet as a senior satellite data processing engineer and system operator.

“At European Space Imaging we are working with traditional full-sized satellites with a mass between 2000kg and 3000kg,” said Philipp.

While the company provides access to imagery from full-sized satellites, Philipp could speak to the pros and cons of small satellites also.

Pros:

“The launch cost decreases significantly with decreasing satellite size. It is possible to bring them into orbit as secondary rocket payload and even launch several at once per launch. The record here is 88 sats in one launch.
Production cost of a satellite decrease. As with decreasing size, the complexity of a satellite platform decreases as well and the cost of one satellite decreases.
The development cycle can be shortened significantly. As with decreasing size, the complexity of a satellite platform decreases as well and it does not take that long to develop a successor to a satellite platform. Can even be shortened to several weeks.
The temporal resolution increases due to the fact that the smaller a satellite becomes, they are sent into orbit as constellations more often and can, in the Earth Observation Business, acquire data over the same area more frequently.
Redundancy. If a Nanosat goes out of order, there are very likely dozens of others still functioning properly in the same constellation. If a launch fails, the loss is not as significant as with full sized satellites.
Cons:

Due to size limitations, the complexity and performance of a small sats is much less compared to full sized platforms.
Reliability goes down with decreasing size. Redundant parts within the platform are excluded to keep costs low and due to size limitations and energy supply limitations. Developing a Nanosat becomes more and more function follows form approach.
The life expectancy is less. Due to less fuel, or even the lack of, stable orbits cannot be maintained as long. Also the smaller batteries do have less life expectancies.
Energy generation is limited due to smaller solar panels.
Operation of huge fleets of satellites becomes too complex for manual operation and automated processes have to be implemented. Developing all these processes and systems takes time. If the developing cycle is too fast, it is hard to keep up with the development of the operating systems.
Huge amount of redundant data gets acquired and has to be stored somewhere. So a lot more storage space is needed.”
When asked what types of tasks would be best addressed by large and small satellites, Philipps said: “High Resolution, Multispectral, Hyperspectral and RADAR observation satellites should be left for larger platforms. As well as Relay satellite platforms. Low or Medium resolution monitoring sats can be smaller. And communication sats can even be smaller.”

For the future of satellites in general, ESI sees a combination of larger satellites for RADAR, high resolution multi- or hyper-spectral earth observation combined with small satellites acquiring medium resolution data in the visible spectrum. Both will be sending their data through large relay sats.

Afrin, Syria devastation European Space Imaging

Recently European Space Imaging supplied imaging to show more than half of an ancient temple near the town of Afrin, Syria that had been reduced to rubble most likely by a Turkish airstrike. 30 cm resolution image of the temple at Ain Dara was captured by DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2 satellite on January 29th. The American Schools of Oriental Research Cultural Heritage Initiatives (ASOR) analyzed the data to confirm the extent of the damage. By comparing it with on-the-ground reports they were able to verify that an incident had taken place, and the exact parts of the temple that were damaged.

The Ain Dara temple is more than 3,000 years old and contains many stone sculptures of lions and sphinxes. Culturally the damage to the temple represents a devastating loss to the history of Syria.

“Interestingly, we captured a 50 cm resolution image on the very same day, but the 30 cm picture shows the destruction much more clearly,” said Adrian Zevenbergen, managing director of European Space Imaging. “This highlights how critical that extra resolution is for gaining a proper understanding of what happened here.”

By comparing satellite imagery collected over recent weeks the ASOR investigators were able to conclude that the incident most likely took place between January 20 and January 22.

In a similar case, very high resolution satellite imagery was used to ascertain the timeline and extent of damage to Iraqi heritage sites by ISIS in 2015, at Hatra and Nimrud. A European Space Imaging case study outlines that story.

In the arena of large satellites, Rocket Lab has successfully reached orbit with the test flight of its second Electron orbital launch vehicle, Still Testing. Electron lifted-off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand recently.

Rocket Lab’s Electron Still Testing launch vehicle lifts off from Launch Complex 1. (Photo: Business Wire)

Following successful first and second stage burns, Electron reached orbit and deployed customer payloads at 8 minutes and 31 seconds after lift-off.

“Today marks the beginning of a new era in commercial access to space. We’re thrilled to reach this milestone so quickly after our first test launch,” says Rocket Lab CEO and founder Peter Beck. “Our incredibly dedicated and talented team have worked tirelessly to develop, build and launch Electron. I’m immensely proud of what they have achieved today.”

“Reaching orbit on a second test flight is significant on its own, but successfully deploying customer payloads so early in a new rocket program is almost unprecedented. Rocket Lab was founded on the principal of opening access to space to better understand our planet and improve life on it. Today we took a significant step towards that,” he says.

The data from this launch will be used to inform future launches, according to Rocket Lab engineers. Rocket Lab currently has five Electron vehicles in production, with the next launch expected to take place in early 2018. At full production, Rocket Lab expects to launch more than 50 times a year, and is regulated to launch up to 120 times a year, more than any other commercial or government launch provider in history.

Still Testing was carrying a Dove Pioneer Earth-imaging satellite for launch customer Planet, as well as two Lemur-2 satellites for weather and ship tracking company Spire.

Rocket Lab’s commercial phase will see Electron fly already-signed customers including NASA, Spire, Planet, Moon Express and Spaceflight.

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The world’s first space-based system to help identify specific sources of greenhouse gas emissions is now circling the Earth.

The main unit in the network, an orbiter called the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (Tropomi), is a package of state-of-the-art sensors launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in October. By December, it had begun to map the plumes of methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and various aerosols over industrial facilities and cities as it passed over Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.

Built to eventually map emissions planetwide every 24 hours and to show pollutants in higher resolution than ever before, Tropomi’s sharper images drew raves from its sponsors. Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA’s Earth observation programs, called it a “milestone for Europe“ and noted that it will be “valuable for helping to put appropriate mitigation policies in place.”

It may also prove to be a high-water mark for North America. Tropomi has been exchanging information with the owners of a second satellite, called Claire. It was launched in 2016 by GHGSat Inc., a Montreal-based company, to find leaking gases at sites like wellheads. Stephane Germain, the CEO, says that Claire’s sensors are miniaturized to fit into a package the size of a microwave oven. The orbiter, a silver rectangular box, has been using Tropomi’s information to home in on industrial facilities, such as oil and gas operations, to see if they have sprung methane leaks.

Tropomi can get its resolution down to about a square mile on Earth—a area that lets it see the emissions from a specific city. Germain saw a business opportunity there for Claire—named after a newborn child of one of his company’s engineers. Working with the Canadian Space Agency, GHGSat spent three years designing a satellite whose lightweight imaging spectrometer can focus on an area as small as 164 square feet. That should allow Claire to pinpoint the exact source of the leaking methane so the company can fix it.

Under a cap-and-trade system to reduce emissions, like the one in California and Quebec, the cost of methane leaks can add up. Refineries, pipelines and remote fields of oil and gas wellheads can be hard to monitor, but an orbiting satellite traveling over 4 miles per second can measure a facility’s emissions more cheaply, more accurately and more often.

By now, GHGSat says it has measured emissions from over 2,000 sites across the world.

“Primarily we want to serve industrial operations,” Germain explained in an interview, but his company is also interested in comparing measurement techniques with government regulators. He hopes one day the same emissions data will be available to everybody to inform policymaking.

SPRING A LEAK, AND BELLS RING

Ultimately, big industrial emitters will need “tiered systems” of sensors, Germain thinks. His company is preparing to launch two more satellites and is developing sensor packages that can be carried by aircraft, along with ground-based emissions sensors to monitor large industrial complexes.

Those efforts have attracted a potential U.S. competitor, Bluefield Technologies of Palo Alto, Calif. Its CEO, Yotam Ariel, has formed a team of scientists and engineers who are designing a satellite the size of a backpack to spot the distinctive patterns of sunlight that is reflected from small emissions of methane on Earth. Bluefield is one of many new companies taking advantage of new “CubeSats,” or tiny satellites that can make inexpensive measurements from space.

Bluefield is building its own list of clients and hopes to launch two satellites over the next two years. They will be miniaturized versions of what NASA has used for over 30 years. “It is not in space yet, but we have no doubts that the physics works,” said Ariel.

Ultimately, Ariel predicts that the government will outsource satellite monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions to private companies. “We’re providing a cost-effective way to do this globally and to have less of a debate on the data,” he said. He expects it will take five to seven years for a private satellite industry to fully form, but it would save businesses money.

He hopes to sell satellite data to investors in oil and gas companies, such as hedge funds, and to government agencies, environmental groups and insurance companies that might want to monitor a company’s progress in reducing emissions.

Ariel thinks landfills, cattle feeding operations, power plants and other producers of methane could be clients, too. “They [the client companies] have a new way to keep an eye on their infrastructure,” he said. If there is a problem, such as a methane leak, “it rings a bell and they can send someone out to fix that.”

REDUCE AND VERIFY

There may be a lot of bells ringing. The system now is a haphazard, on-the-ground monitoring network used to track greenhouse gases. In some parts of the world, it may be politically impossible. Yet the stakes are growing. In November, the World Bank announced that the value of global carbon pricing initiatives, such as California’s cap-and-trade system, is now $52 billion and growing by 7 percent each year.

This year, China may unveil its own emissions trading system, which could be the largest carbon pricing initiative in the world. But how it may develop and how it might be verified remain to be seen. Under California’s carbon system, a company is assigned a “cap” or a limit to its greenhouse gas emissions. Each metric ton of carbon must be covered by a permit. If a company reduces its emissions below the cap, it can sell excess permits for a profit. If it can’t or if it experiences, for example, long-term methane leaks, it may have to buy more permits and pay whatever price the market demands.

“The days are coming when we will have satellites in the sky that can monitor any facility on this planet,” said Rob Jackson, who heads Stanford University’s Earth system science department. “I’m quite excited about that. The environmental community will be able to watchdog any facility on Earth. I think everyone will benefit.”

Eric Kort, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Michigan, said that “the scientific community is quite excited that the Tropomi information will be useful,” but he added that GHGSat has not released enough public information to convince him that Claire, its smaller, more precisely focused satellite, works.

“I hope that they get there, because I think it will be interesting. Tropomi has opened a new kind of window on the world,” Kort said. He noted that in January, NASA announced that it hopes to enlarge its data gathering on Earth’s emissions in the early 2020s, by launching a satellite it calls the Geostationary Carbon Observatory, or “GeoCarb.”

GeoCarb will be placed in a geostationary orbit that will allow it to travel at the same speed as the Earth’s rotation, giving it what NASA calls “wall to wall” focus on North and South America. That would allow it to make as many as 10 million daily observations. It will be the first U.S. satellite to measure methane plumes near Earth’s surface.

“Methane leakage from natural gas production costs U.S. industry $5 billion to $10 billion a year,” NASA noted, not quantifying the additional costs of artificially heating up the Earth’s atmosphere. According to the space agency, methane emissions are increasing annually. Most of it comes from fossil fuel production. A smaller increase comes from agricultural production, like rice farming. The third source—forest fires—has recently been decreasing, according to a new NASA study.

Steven Hamburg, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, has spent years trying to find ways to quantify and reduce man-made methane emissions. He agrees that we’re rapidly moving into a new, more robust world of verifying emissions. Traditionally, the United States and other countries have used satellites to measure emissions in a general way, to be used in global climate models.

With Tropomi, which was primarily developed by the Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Hamburg sees a new effort to map problematic emissions on Earth. That could help policymakers develop mitigation policies.

Business-driven ventures like GHGSat’s Claire satellite can give companies an accurate picture of their emissions—while also verifying their reductions. “We need both, and we’re seeing an emergence of technologies to do that, but we shouldn’t conflate them,” Hamburg said. “Together, they create the revolution.”

For him, the revolution will produce a new data set that’s seen and measured by multiple sources. It has to be trustworthy.

Hamburg sometimes imagines a new role for himself when and if the revolutionary moment arrives. “I’d like to walk up and say: ‘Well, that’s exciting, and now I’d like to see your data.’

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