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Made-in-Italy value added environmental and infrastructure monitoring services and infomobility solutions.

INNOVA Consorzio per l’Informatica e la Telematica srl is an Italian SME specialized as a service and technology provider for the Earth Observation, Remote Sensing, Logistics and Public Administration sectors.

Our mission is to provide innovative and qualitative operational services, with close attention to new market developments, state-of-the-art technological solutions and satisfying customer requirements. We count today with 18 highly qualified experts and two company divisions: Earth Observation and Infomobility. Each division is equipped with its own R&D lab.

Earth Observation Division

Our main activity lies in the Remote Sensing and Earth Observation sectors. INNOVA’s key remote sensing technologies are:

  • the elaboration of satellite images using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data for various environmental and structural monitoring applications;
  • the elaboration of Radio Occultation data used for satellite positioning using GPS technology and meteorology.

The company has had a major role in the COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for Mediterranean basin Observation) mission since its inception. It is the largest Italian investment in Space Systems for Earth Observation, commissioned and funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Italian Ministry of Defence (MoD), conceived as a Dual-Use (Civilian and Defence) end-to-end Earth Observation System aimed to establish a global service supplying provision of data, products and services compliant with well-established international standards and relevant to a wide range of applications, such as Risk Management, Scientific and Commercial Applications and Defence/ Intelligence Applications.

The system consists of a constellation of four Low Earth Orbit mid-sized satellites, each equipped with a multi-mode high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) operating in X-band. Within the programme, INNOVA has been involved in the analysis and prototyping of the focusing algorithms for the StripMap and Spotlight acquisition modes to generate Single Look Complex, Multilooked, Detected, Ground Projected and/or DEM Projected images.

With the know-how acquired in this initial activity, the company designed and developed the following processors present today in the User Ground Segment (UGS):

  • deformatting processor to generate Level 0 products from data acquired in all acquisition modes;
  • focusing of SAR raw data in the highest resolution SpotLight acquisition mode for the generation of Level 1A products;
  • processor for the generation of Level 1B products using data acquired in StripMap and Spotlight.

Highlight of said experience is without a doubt the design and development of the processor to focus very high resolution data acquired in Spotlight acquisition mode, of great interest for civil, but mostly, military defence applications.

INNOVA is currently involved in the validation and calibration activities for the commissioning phase of the constellation satellites and has collaborated with Telespazio S.p.A. during Phases A and B of the COSMO Second Generation.

INNOVA has also been actively involved in the ROSA (Radio Occultation for Sounding the Atmosphere), programme of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). One of ASI’s priorities is indeed Earth Observation and in particular understanding climate change and the water cycle.

ROSA has become the heart of a scientific mission that represents Italy’s contribution to better understand climate change. The Radio Occultation technique, with the advent of satellite constellations such as GPS and GLONASS, and the near future GALILEO, allows for a detailed global study of the Earth’s atmospheric parameters.

These characteristics render Radio Occultation an extremely useful technique for the following applications:

  • meteorology/climatology: having a good knowledge of the humidity, pressure and temperature profiles on a global scale will increase the accuracy of weather models and of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP);
  • Space Weather (electrons density profile in the ionosphere): knowing the total electron content (TEC) in the ionosphere (from a height of approximately 80 km to 700 Km) is extremely interesting for forecasts and Space Weather modelling;
  • Solid Earth Physics: Precise Orbit Determination (POD) of a satellite is of great interest for Solid Earth Physics.

As a continuation of our scientific and industrial activities in ROSA, June 2012 sees the beginning of GIANTGMSPAZIO INNOVA Atmospheric New Toolkit, an ESA project co-financed under the GSTP programme, which has as main objective to add the capability of importing and handling atmospheric parameters derived from the Radio Occultation (RO) technique and from Ground-Based GPS measures, into a market proven commercial software for general purpose real scenario simulation, specifically AGI STKTM a software used to solve basic location and inter-visibility problems associated with land, sea, air and space scenarios.

Infomobility Division

Over the last few years the company has also focused on infomobility / fleet management systems that use GPS satellite navigation and of course, ESA’s future GALILEO. Regarding the infomobility sector, the company’s key technologies are based on satellite navigation to provide the following infomobility services:

  • monitoring of public and private transport, logistics and waste collection vehicles;
  • monitoring and integrated waste management of dangerous and non-dangerous waste materials;
  • mobility support for disabled citizens.

Significant investment has been made to develop an innovative state-of-the-art second generation web-based infomobility platform, TrackingSolution. We are today a service provider and monitor over 500 vehicles for clients in the Logistics, Transport and Waste Management sectors.

Tracking Solution can be applied to management and operational requirements of other sectors. The platform is already available for the following fields:

  • Integrated Management of the Waste Collection Cycle (Control PTO, emptying of the rubbish skips, compacting cycles, dumps, brush wheel control, integration with RFID technology for automatic recognition of rubbish skips with transponders, Android/iPhone operator software);
  • Public Transport (Dial-A-Ride transport management, integration with intelligent poles).

Success Stories

DIAN S.r.l. – a start-up is born

A definite success story, especially considering the economic crises that has been affecting Europe for the last few years, is the founding of our start-up, DIAN S.r.l. (Differential Interferometric Analysis).

DIAN operates in the advanced tertiary sector as a provider of remote sensing and non-destructive infrastructure monitoring engineering services and is the natural progression of entrepreneurial know-how and over 15 years of scientific research in the remote sensing and non-destructive monitoring fields.

The services offered by DIAN are based on the Synthetic Aperture Radar technology with data acquired by satellite and ground based radar sensors:

  • environmental monitoring services, such as landslides, landslips and land subsistence, providing measurements of the morphological changes of the land both on a large scale using satellite data and on small-scale using ground-based radar;
  • static and dynamic monitoring as well as non-destructive monitoring of infrastructures such as: bridges, viaducts, buildings, churches and any other infrastructure of particular artistic value, industrial infrastructures and wind farms;
  • infrastructure stability monitoring services of railway lines, motorways, oil pipelines, gas pipelines.

DIAN offers an innovative solution and the greatest challenge is showing how our services compare with standard techniques used in the market today. Key strengths are:

  • Speed: few minutes to measure vibrations of the whole structure
  • Accuracy: sub-millimetre precision and accuracy of interferometric measurements
  • Interactivity: results available directly in the field
  • Cost-effectiveness: a single measurement can avoid installing many accelerometers
  • Non-destructive: marker-less for structures difficult to access
  • Dense: tenths of monitored points per square meter
  • In-depth: 2D displacement maps for post-measurement numerical analysis|
Figure 1- GBSAR monitoring of slope displacements

Figure 2- DAM Displacement Map

Figure 3- Displacement Map

The first year has taken us all over Italy where we have carried out numerous test campaigns. Highlights are:

  • Vibration measurement of a bell tower;
  • Measurement of dam displacements;
  • Measurement of slope displacements;
  • Static and dynamic bridge acceptance test;
  • Terrain displacement measurement of landslide area.

Integrated Waste Collection Platform

Waste collection in Italy is going through exciting changes as Municipalities must fulfill waste collection and recycling legislation. INNOVA’s innovative solution for the Integrated Management of the Waste Collection Cycle is proving to be a successful answer to new market requirements.

Our state-of-the-art solution combines web-based, GPS and RFID technology and has been designed to help municipalities and waste collection operators monitor and manage the complete waste collection cycle.

The platform manages:

  • the waste collection vehicle fleet,
  • the waste collection containers,
  • ground crew personnel.

and monitors:

  • PTO control,
  • waste collection containers,
  • compaction cycles,
  • waste unloading,
  • road cleaning brush activation control,
  • automatic recognition of containers with transponders,
  • operator software for Android / iPhone.
Figure 4- RFID & GPS Monitoring of Waste Collection Skips
Figure 5- Ground Crew Smartphone Application

In this context, the technology platform proposed by INNOVA gives all users (municipalities, operators and residents) the possibility of knowing the type of material that is recycled and the given quantity. This information is useful for municipalities to define a reward system that incentivizes recycling, offering greater savings to more environmentally friendly users.

Innova

The Indonesian archipelago lies at the heart of the Coral Triangle and is one of the most important reservoirs of marine biodiversity on the planet. The region provides several billion dollars of annual revenue through fisheries, aquaculture and tourism, with fishing and aquaculture employing almost 50 million people. These resources are now under threat as never before, ravaged each year by, illegal fishing that robs the government and local fishermen of some 2 billion dollars. The region’s natural resources are also threatened by global warming, pollution and coastal deforestation. To combat these risks and support the country’s Blue Revolution, which aims to make Indonesia the world’s leading producer of seafood, the government has chosen CLS, a subsidiary of CNES, to create a major national centre to forecast changes to marine resources, protect them (especially against illegal fishing) and develop them.

The seas around Indonesia are a part of the Coral Triangle, which encompasses the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and West Timor. The triangle is a major reservoir of the planet’s biodiversity, containing some 30% of all coral reefs and the largest known nurseries of tuna. Since the 1970s, almost 40% of these coral reefs and mangroves have been lost. These changes could lead to an ecological disaster with rapid and dramatic consequences for the local economy.

But how to monitor a maritime region the size of Europe? One solution is by satellite, backed up by CLS expertise in acquiring, processing, analysing and interpreting of satellite data, combined with 20 years’ experience and expertise in space-based oceanography and the modelling of marine ecosystems.

The Indonesian government has chosen CLS and entrusted it with the creation of its national centre for the monitoring and sustainable management of marine resources. This national centre, commissioned at a cost of almost $30M, will include a research and surveillance centre, a receiving station for the acquisition of high-resolution radar satellite imagery, models for forecasting the evolution of tuna populations and a training programme for scientists.

The data processed and stored will be acquired from observation and surveillance satellites covering the entire maritime region around Indonesia.

The centre will develop applications for:

  • combating illegal fishing
  • managing fish stocks (especially tuna)
  • integrated management of coastal regions and Marine Protected Areas
  • monitoring the condition of coral reefs and protecting them
  • supporting shrimp producers and industrial aquaculture (recommending production sites)
  • supporting the development of algae production (for the agrifood and cosmetics sectors)
  • protecting the environment (detecting accidental oil spills)

CLS was already working in Indonesia via its subsidiary, PT CLS Indonesia, which has been helping the government fit out the largest fishing vessels with location beacons since 2004. CLS has already equipped almost 3000 vessels with beacons so that they can be tracked in fishing zones. The creation of this national space oceanography centre is the logical next step in the implementation of a sustainable-fishery policy.

CLS
475 people employed around the world,
16 branches and subsidiaries,
79 million Euros of turnover in 2012,
Billions of data items processed every day, received from 80 instruments carried on 40 satellites,
A global reference for:

  • fighting illegal fishing: eradication of illegal fishing around the Kerguelen and Heard & McDonald Islands on behalf of the French Maritime Affairs authorities and the Australian Customs Service; setting up an acquisition and processing system for high-resolution satellite images (SEAS-OI) on Reunion Island; fitting out more than 15,000 fishing vessels around the world, including 80% of the French fishing fleet,
  • modelling marine ecosystems: developing models of the population dynamics of different economically significant species (such as sardine, anchovy, Jack mackerel, tuna or swordfish), used around the world.

Key figures:

  • 50 million Indonesians depend on fishing and aquaculture
  • 30% of the world’s corals are found in the waters round Indonesia
  • 40% of Indonesian coral reefs and mangroves have disappeared since the 1970s
  • 25 years is the average time necessary for coral reefs to recover from damage by fishing with explosives
  • 20 years of experience acquired by CLS in satellite-based oceanography and maritime surveillance, from which the new Indonesian centre will benefit.
  • 30 million dollars: the cost of the project
  • 3000 fishing vessels already fitted with CLS equipment in Indonesia as part of the administration of a managed fishery programme since 2004.

(19 March 2013) Astrium, Europe’s leading space technology company, has announced the operational and commercial launch of the fully complete Pléiades constellation as well as SPOT 6, following the successful in-orbit qualification of the Pléiades 1B and SPOT 6 satellites.

  • Astrium announces Pléiades 1B and SPOT 6 operational following their in-orbit validation
  • Astrium Services is now the only operator in the world able to offer very-high-resolution images of any point on the globe taken by a constellation of identical satellites, on a daily basis
  • Together with SPOT 6 and the soon-to-be-launched SPOT 7, the Pléiades satellites form a dual constellation of satellites to offer complementary performance in terms of image size and resolution

It is this daily revisit capability that makes geo-information services a reliable part of the strategic and economic decision-making process, offering Astrium Services’ customers a number of advantages. These are as follows: speedier access to images (war and crisis zones and natural disaster areas are visible in a matter of hours, anywhere in the world); the provision of images on a regular basis, enabling, for example, daily monitoring of activity at a specific location (rate of progress of civil engineering projects, surveillance of a military, industrial or mining sites, etc…); and twice the number of images (images are acquired twice as fast and with twice the chance of a cloud-free image being captured, making it the ideal configuration for mapping large areas).

Taken between 15 and 21 February 2013, this series of images of the port of Suez in Egypt perfectly illustrates the daily revisit potential of the Pléiades constellation. They show shipping activity, in particular the movement of ferries and commercial vessels at the entrance to the canal. All these images are available in jpeg or video stills at the website ftp://ftp.astrium-geo.com/satellite_2013/

Pléiades 1A and 1B are Europe’s first very-high-resolution Earth-observation satellites, and are positioned 180° apart in the same quasi-polar heliosynchronous orbit, at an altitude of 695 km. They offer exceptional performance in the civil market: 50 cm products over a 20 km footprint and excellent flexibility (rapid pointing) allowing multiple acquisition modes (stereo, mosaic, corridor, target). Thanks to their unparalleled ability to acquire 900 images a day, they also offer major operational advantages to users.

The SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 constellation will operate in conjunction with Pléiades and will offer 1.5 m resolution data over larger imaging swaths (60 km) for mapping very large areas. The Pléiades (1A and 1B) and SPOT 6 and 7 constellations will be stationed at equidistant points in the same orbit around the Earth, making Astrium Services the first operator in the world able to offer a complete range of Earth-observation data at different resolutions (from medium to very high resolution). What this means is that every point of the globe will now be visible in high and very-high resolution on a daily basis.

Astrium Services will now distribute images from the twin Pléiades 1A and 1B satellites, operating as a fully fledged constellation. This configuration, the only one of its kind in the world, offers very-high-resolution daily revisits and guarantees an image in less than 24 hours from any point on the globe, as well as daily monitoring of any location and double the coverage
Evert Dudok Astrium Services CEO

About Astrium

Astrium is the number one company in Europe for space technologies and the third in the world. It is the only global company that covers the full range of civil and defence space systems, equipment and services.

In 2012, Astrium had a turnover over €5.8 billion and 18,000 employees worldwide. Its three business units are: Astrium Space Transportation, the European prime contractor for launchers, orbital systems and space exploration; Astrium Satellites, a leading provider of satellite system solutions, including spacecraft, ground segments, payloads and equipments; Astrium Services, the Space services partner for critical missions, providing comprehensive fixed and mobile solutions covering secure and commercial satcoms and networks, and bespoke geo-information services, worldwide.

Astrium is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2012, the Group – comprising Airbus, Astrium, Cassidian and Eurocopter – generated revenues of €56.5 billion and employed a workforce of over 140,000.

Two years ago Aerodata International Surveys started a close co-operation with TerraImaging via a majority shareholding in the company.

This co-operation has proven to be very successful. Together we have realized many LIDAR projects in various countries in Europe and in other places in the world. The highly accurate AHN project in the Netherlands, mapping rivers for IGN in France and LIDAR projects in Germany, Spain, Romania and Columbia are just some examples. The demands to supply solutions based on a combination and integration of technologies is clearly growing.

So it is time for the next step:

Together we want to further exploit the knowledge, expertise and technologies in the Aerodata Group of companies, offer new products and services, implement new technologies, strengthen our market presence, create further synergies and most important offer our customers the best possible solutions.
On the road to achieve these ambitions we have decided to change our names as per March 1st, 2013 into:

Aerodata Surveys Nederland and Aerodata Surveys Deutschland.

More than just a change of name:

Aerodata Surveys Nederland and Deutschland will continue to be the international center of excellence for LIDAR technology within the Aerodata Group. And from our Dutch and German office we will continue to be your partner and offer laser scanning products and services on the international market.

On the Dutch market we will replace the existing Aerodata office and offer in addition to our current products and services all other Aerodata products from our office in Utrecht. Also our office in Berlin will offer all additional Aerodata products.

But there is more:

We will further extend our product portfolio with knowledge intensive services, often in close co-operation with partners. Solar potential analysis, flash flood mapping, change detection, 3D city models and “surveying behind your desk” are just some examples. We will implement new technologies like LIDAR bathymetry and others. All with the aim to serve our customers better and help them to achieve their goals and optimize their return on investment.

And most important:

For you as our Customer or Business partner this means that we can offer you all expertise, products and services of the Aerodata Group of companies. For further information please do not hesitate to contact: info@aerodata-nederland.com

Aerodata Surveys Nederland and Deutschland will continue to offer all services which were offered by TerraImaging. We are currently updating the Aerodata website to include information on these services. Until then, you can find this information on the old TerraImaging website

(Source Aerodata Surveys)

ESA’s SMOS satellite is not only proving its worth by mapping soil moisture and ocean salinity, this multifaceted satellite has now shown that it can ‘see’ through vegetation to monitor wetlands for a better understanding of Earth’s carbon cycle.

It is widely appreciated that wetlands are important resources of freshwater and are rich in biodiversity.

However, it is less well known that wetlands also emit large quantities of methane – in fact, they contribute more methane to the atmosphere than any other natural source. Wetlands can also be both sources and sinks of carbon.

Although there is less methane in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas. It is estimated that atmospheric methane was responsible for about 20% of the rise in global temperatures last century.

Methane emissions are mostly a result of human activity, but wetlands are thought to be responsible for about 20–40% of global emissions.

The waterlogged wetland soil is a prime habitat for anaerobic microbes. It is the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter covered by water that produces large quantities of methane.

ESA’s SMOS water mission carries a novel microwave sensor to capture images of ‘brightness temperature’ to derive information on soil moisture and ocean salinity. This information is improving our understanding of water cycle.

However, SMOS is showing itself to be a very versatile tool and extending its usefulness to other areas of Earth science.

Surpassing expectations, SMOS is also being used to monitor thin Arctic sea ice, map freezing soil, determine wind speeds under hurricanes and monitor ocean eddies. Extending the value of SMOS even further, studies have shown that monitoring wetlands could be added to the mission’s repertoire.

Because SMOS measures emitted radiation at a rather long wavelength of 21 cm, vegetation and the atmosphere have little affect on the observations. This means it is possible to look at how wetlands change over time.

Such information is extremely valuable for our understanding of the role that wetlands play in the carbon cycle and how they contribute to atmospheric methane.

Moreover, it has recently been demonstrated that observations from SMOS can reproduce features seen in complex datasets that include observations from many satellites such as that shown in the image on the left.

Catherine Prigent from the Paris Observatory explains, “SMOS offers the opportunity to implement fast and easy single satellite algorithms for monitoring wetland areas.

“This complements current methods of analysis that require a lot of work to blend the different products.”

A future SMOS product could be interesting for the GlobWetland II project. This programme, which is funded through ESA’s Earth Observation Data User Element, is helping to establish the Global Wetlands Observing System.

Here, high-resolution optical data such as that from the Sentinel-2 mission, could be combined with the coarse-resolution SMOS observations to make optimal use of available remotely-sensed information.

By mapping wetlands and soil moisture, SMOS can also lead to a better understanding of the exchange processes between Earth’s surface and the atmosphere, including carbon fluxes.

Integrating SMOS observations into global carbon models is another novel application that was presented during the SMOS land application workshop held in February in Italy.

(Source ESA)

A new way of studying and visualizing Earth science data from a NASA and U.S. Geological Survey satellite program is resulting in, for the first time, the ability to tease out the small events that can cause big changes in an ecosystem.


This imagery covers lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service in Washington state, Oregon and northern California. Credit: Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

Called LandTrendr, this computer program is able to find patterns previously buried within vast amounts of scientific data. Still in development, it’s already led to seeing for the first time in satellite imagery an obscured, slow-moving decline and recovery of trees in Pacific Northwest forests.

Comparing satellite data to ground data, scientists uncovered the cause. “It was, as it turns out, bugs,” says Robert Kennedy, a remote sensing specialist at Boston University, who consulted with U.S. Forest Service experts to confirm his observations.

The unexpected disturbance pattern showed a long slow decline of tree health over years followed by slow regrowth. It emerged in several areas, particularly near Mount Hood in the 1980s, peaking in 1992 when regrowth began, and near Mount Rainier where the insect outbreak lasted ten years from its onset in 1994 till the insects killed all the trees and moved on in 2004.

Kennedy created the LandTrendr program specifically to work with data from the NASA and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat program. Kennedy’s new way of viewing Landsat imagery has already changed how the Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest operates its yearly forest monitoring program that uses ground stations, satellite imagery and statistics to evaluate current conditions.

Kennedy says that LandTrendr works because of the unique nature of Landsat data. The data embedded in images are a scientific record of the Earth’s surface that goes back 40 years.

Each image, or scene, covers an area 115 miles by 112 miles (185 kilometers by 180 kilometers) and provides data for wavelengths of light reflected or emitted from the Earth’s surface, which scientists use to see, for example, forest conditions not apparent in visible light. With the four-decade record, they can compare images between years and see how the land changes with time.

Studying big areas over many years means handling big data sets and figuring out how to get all the data to work together for meaningful comparisons. One challenge in particular is finding images from the same time of year where the view of the ground is not hidden by clouds.

Kennedy’s breakthrough was to combine cloud-free pixels from multiple scenes of the same area collected over the growing season in late summer. Then he compares the new images for each year to one another. By breaking a scene down into smaller sized pixels, the cloud-covered portions could be tossed away, but LandTrendr keeps the clean bits to reveal the life history of each pixel.

“We’re getting better data use out of what people think of as crummier images,” says Curtis Woodcock, a remote sensing specialist at Boston University who employs a similar method to Kennedy to build an image of the landscape out of Landsat data pixel by pixel.

What makes all this possible are two things: Computers are finally powerful enough to process vast amounts of data, and Landsat data is now available free of charge.

The Oregon Data Trail
The Landsat program has been observing Earth’s land surfaces consistently since 1972, when the first Landsat satellite, what became known as Landsat 1, went into orbit.

Since then, it has compiled the longest continuous satellite record of change across our planet. But a left over pay-for-data policy from the commercialization of the program in the 1980s and 90s meant scientists rarely looked at the year-by-year evolution of a landscape. When the USGS began providing Landsat data for no charge in 2008, looking at twenty-five years or more of data became affordable as long as you had the computing power to handle it.

“Not that long ago the size of an individual Landsat scene would have crippled most desk top computers,” says Doug Morton, a physical scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md., who uses Landsat to study changes in the Amazon and forests in Indonesia. Now with processing power doubled or more, he says, it’s no problem for most desktop machines to handle a big scientific job.

When Kennedy first saw a yearly succession of moderate resolution Landsat satellite images of a 13,000 square mile area near Portland, Ore., it was a revelation. Says Kennedy, it was like looking at a pair of air photos of a forested hillside offset so that with special glasses, the image pops into three dimensional clarity.

“You sort of squint your eyes and it takes a while and all of a sudden you get that moment — boom! Oh, my god, it’s a landscape!” he says. “I had that same sense [of amazement ] when I first started looking at the time series stuff.”

The ability to scroll backward and forward through time and Kennedy’s new technique for creating single visualizations out of millions of bits of data from hundreds of Landsat images has revealed not just the patchwork of fire scars and clear cuts — what he was originally looking for when he partnered with the Forest Service — but also the slow and subtle changes that take place over many years, including pulses of insect outbreaks.

“We did not expect that,” says Kennedy. In the satellite imagery they had found two kinds of insect signals. The first is a classic mountain pine beetle outbreak. One near the Three Sisters volcanoes in Oregon started in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The beetles attacked lodge pole pines, the same species affected in outbreaks throughout British Columbia and Colorado.

The second, subtler signal found near Mount Hood and Mount Rainier is the western spruce budworm, an insect that moves into an area and eats the needles off the trees. Losing its green growth doesn’t necessarily kill the tree, but it does put it under a lot of stress. If budworms return in following years, trees will ultimately succumb to the onslaught and die. Then the budworms, out of food, move on. And the forest gradually recovers.

Kennedy says to confirm the satellite data, they hiked into areas with recent known budworm outbreaks near Mount Rainier. With the decline and regrowth patterns from the new maps in hand, Kennedy says, “we stand out on the ground in the forest and look at all the dead trees and we realize that we’re actually starting to see something that we had never been able to see before from space. It was very exciting.”

The imagery produced by LandTrendr is a remarkable tool for looking at change over time, says Woodcock. But what he really wants to see is a move from the retrospective to the real time. He says, “The goal in the long run is to be able to provide land managers information on what’s happening as it’s happening.” It’s a process, he says, that’s just getting started.

“That ability to read the story of the landscape is something that the Landsat archive allows us to do like none other,” says Doug Morton of NASA Goddard. NASA and the USGS will continue providing the means to see it with the next satellite in the Landsat series, to be called Landsat 8, scheduled to launch in early 2013.

Source

EARSC is a non-profit-making organisation created in 1989 with the mission to foster the development of European Geo-Information Service Industry. Our main objective is to stimulate a sustainable market for geo-information services using EO data. Today, EARSC has 65 members in more than 20 countries, and is a recognized association both in Europe and worldwide.

EARSC represents the European providers of geo-information services creating a network between industry, decision-makers and users. We consider that the market is at a crucial stage of development as Earth observation becomes more frequently used by society and adds positive value to our daily lives. Nevertheless, there are many issues, opportunities and threats facing industrial actors and, through a small secretariat, EARSC informs and involves its members though its website and newsletters, through the provision of web-tools, as well as organizing events.

Members tell us that they appreciate the opportunity to network with other similar companies and that this helps them develop new business opportunities as well as exchanging on best practices. They also like the regular flow of information as well as the knowledge that EARSC is able to influence EU and ESA policy when it is important for the sector.

The acceptance of new members has to be approved at the Board of Directors. The documents needed are:
1) signed pdf letter quoting an agreement with EARSC status, company interest in the Association, and a brief description of your company activities and
2) common EARSC Template (please request to secretariat_at_earsc.org)

More information on EARSC including how to join could be found at our website (www.earsc.org). Here you can subscribe to eomag if you do not already receive it and learn more about what EARSC is doing.

Analysing the state of the EO geo-information Services Industry and to understand the issues that are important for its future

At the end of 2012, EO services providers have received a mail from EARSC asking to complete a questionnaire for our survey to analyse the state of the EO geo-information Services Industry and to understand the issues that are important for its future.

The web-questionnaire will be followed by a limited number of phone interviews. Whilst the first is very focused on figures the second will be more subjective and opinion-oriented and we estimate will take around 30 to 45 minutes. We would like as many companies as possible to complete both surveys and are interested to hear from any company wishing to participate.

Active participation by the EO service industry is a critical component in ensuring that the survey can meet the objectives of furnishing a sufficiently comprehensive and accurate picture of the current industry status and health. These information will help also to identify priority issues, dominant opportunities, threats and other concerns facing the industry; therefore to have a clear picture about our sector!

A detailed understanding of the Earth Observation sector and the trends is essential to help stakeholders to plan their activities and to assess the effectiveness of their actions. Industry has a strong interest to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available.

The survey will help inform ESA on the priorities for future EO value adding activities and pave the way for other stakeholder actions. It will provide critical data to help set budgets for EO research and development. It will enable EARSC to represent the industry in the most effective way.

If you wish to participate in the survey, or if you have any other questions regarding the survey, contact
EARSC secretariat

Thank you very much for your active participation,
EARSC secretariat

(© Copernicus.eu) The European Union offers numerous opportunities to companies to co-finance innovation either through the attribution of grants or through mechanisms that facilitates the access to loans.

The European Union offers numerous opportunities to companies to co-finance innovation either through the attribution of grants or through mechanisms that facilitates the access to loans. These funding mechanisms can help companies in the different phases of their development(R&D, prototyping, commercialisation, business expansion, etc.). They can in particular be exploited by SMEs willing to develop new GMES-based products or services.

However, this wide variety of mechanisms is in itself an obstacle for small companies since it is time consuming to analyse and understand what the most appropriate sources of financing are and how to access them.

A Beginner’s Guide has been produced by the GRAAL project with the objective to facilitate the first steps of new comers in the “jungle” of existing funding opportunities.

Source

(Dec2012) On 12 December 2012, EUMETSAT’s MSG-3 satellite was declared ready to support the Meteosat operational services and renamed Meteosat-10. On 18 December, the dissemination of Meteosat-10 SEVIRI data and meteorological products has started to the wider user community via EUMETCast-Europe.

This is in addition to the National Meteorological Services in EUMETSAT’s Member and Cooperating States and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which have been receiving SEVIRI data and products since October. For EUMETCast users in Africa, a user station upgrade is being prepared which will be deployed over the coming weeks, ensuring Meteosat-10 data availability to users in Africa from January.

In the next two months, Meteosat-10 and Meteosat-9 will deliver full Earth scan image and meteorological products in parallel, with Meteosat-10 scheduled to become the prime operational satellite on 21 January after moving to 0º. Parallel dissemination will allow users to prepare themselves before Meteosat-10 takes over.

MSG is a joint programme undertaken by ESA and EUMETSAT. ESA is responsible for the development of satellites fulfilling user and system requirements defined by EUMETSAT and of the procurement of recurrent satellites on its behalf. Following the satellite separation from the launch vehicle, ESA also performs the Launch and Early Orbit Phase operations required to place the spacecraft in geostationary orbit, before handing it over to EUMETSAT for commissioning and exploitation. EUMETSAT develops all ground systems required to deliver products and services to users and to respond to their evolving needs, procures launch services and operates the full system for the benefit of users.

Launched on 5 July, MSG-3 is the third in a series of four geostationary satellites introduced in 2002. These spin-stabilised satellites carry the primary Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager, or SEVIRI. The prime contractor for the MSG satellites is Thales Alenia Space, with the SEVIRI instrument built by Astrium.

Source UN-Spider