Skip to content

Dutch Ministry of Defence and Spacemetric BV have signed the MAJIIC Project Security Instruction.

This provides Spacemetric BV with access to NATO MAJIIC programme information, allowing verification of the Spacemetric NSILI implementation against the MAJIIC CSD OPS test suite. This is an important step towards a Keystone system providing enhanced support for NATO interoperability standards for exchange of airborne and spaceborne ISR data.

Source

Brockmann Consult is contributing to the System Engineering and Earth Observation team of the Climate Change Initiative, a 75M€ programme of the European Space Agency.

On 27.09.2012 the first results of the programme were presented to the delegates of the ESA members states during the Mid Term Review. Having successfully passed this important milestone the programme will enter into its second phase in 2013.

The Brockmann Consult Software and Earth Observation experts are working in three out of the 13 projects of the programme, namely the Land Cover CCI, Ocean Colour CCI and Sea Surface Temperature CCI. Dr. Carsten Brockmann participated in the review by representing the industrial software engineering teams.

Source

(September 2012) Pixel Factory™, the industrial-scale geo-production system developed by Astrium GEO-Information Services, generates high-level 2D and 3D mapping products thanks to a revolutionary processing chain designed to handle all kinds of Earth-observation data.

Widely used at Astrium GEO-Information Services for products like SPOTMaps, the system has been on the market since 2003 and today has a base of more than 20 customers.

Building on this success, Astrium GEO-Information Services is now further expanding its range of Pixel Factory™.

The newcomers to the family, Space Factory™, Sky Factory™ and Street Factory™, each offer the advantages of their elder, with the industrial production capacity to support fully automated processing of huge volumes of data.

Space Factory™

Designed to handle both optical and radar satellite data, Space Factory™, can be connected to direct receiving stations for even faster processing, so you can start production as soon as data arrive from the antenna. This fully integrated system generates very-high-quality, cloudless nationwide mosaics as well as digital surface models in no time at all.

Sky Factory™

Aircraft or UAVs acquire equally large amounts of imagery, so Sky Factory™ is designed to give all users in the aerial imagery domain the industrial capability of Pixel Factory™.

With Sky Factory™, it is also possible to generate highly accurate digital elevation or surface models, orthoimages and TrueOrthos™, all automatically. And with its small footprint, Sky Factory™ can even be deployed near your area of interest to further speed access to end products.

Street Factory™

Also in the aerial domain, Street Factory™, the newest member of the family, allows you to create highly realistic textured 3D urban models within hours of acquiring imagery from airborne or ground-based cameras.

“Source”:

Thanks to its unique orbit, FORMOSAT-2 is the only civil high-resolution optical satellite that can cover any scene in its coverage area every day. Each site within this area is imaged under the same viewing conditions, i.e. from the same angle and under the same lighting conditions. This makes FORMOSAT-2 the ideal sensor for monitoring and change detection applications, e.g. environmental monitoring for oil spills, oil production facility monitoring).

The unique acquisition capabilities also ensure an improved acquisition success for optical data in equatorial areas or other cloud-prone areas.

With the MyFORMOSAT-2 Virtual Reception system Astrium offers priority access to FORMOSAT-2 data by a guaranteed allocation of acquisition capacity to users on defined orbits. Customers benefit from customised and flexible programming services using an accessible desktop system. A simple web interface provides full visibility of the programming, acquisition and production and enables the modification of tasking requests in order to develop the imaging scenario best suited for the respective requirements. In July 2012 Astrium GEO-Information Services conducted a demonstration project for a customer in the Latin American region to demonstrate the capabilities of FORMOSAT-2 and the advantages of MyFORMOSAT-2. In the demo project images of an area of more than 40,000 km² were programmed to be acquired every day during the equivalent of a 1-orbit minute. The images were recorded in Panchromatic and Multispectral modes. In spite of the winter season in the region, which is characterised by frequent cloud cover, more than 80% of the images resulted to have less than 20% clouds. Within only 10 days more than 70% of the area was successfully covered – thanks to the daily revisit of the sensor and the flexibility offered by the MyFORMOSAT-2 platform FORMOSAT-2 Satellite Image – Mauritius Island © NSPO 2008/ 2009

Source

Since 1 August, Astrium Services has been providing regular status reports for the international community on clean-up and repair work underway at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. Produced with GO Monitor, Astrium Services’ monitoring and analysis service, the reports are derived from very-high-resolution imagery acquired by the Pléiades 1A satellite.

Information will be regularly refreshed on line on the GO Monitor website to keep track of:

  • Movements of radioactive waste and materials
    - Analysis and monitoring of processes employed to treat contaminated materials (cement encapsulation, vitrification, storage, etc.)
  • Demolition and construction work
    - Clearance or reinforcement of infrastructures damaged by the tsunami (buildings, reactors, cooling systems, etc.)
  • Use of support tools such as cranes, storage and public works plant and machinery
    - Analysis of volume of activity to gauge involvement of all stakeholders working on the site

This analysis follows on from that based on FORMOSAT-2 satellite imagery in the month after the tsunami of 11 March 2011. This imagery, which can be viewed via the same interface on the GO Monitor website, tracks the trail of damage left by the tsunami on a daily basis.

Astrium Services’ full satellite constellation and domain experts dispatched vital data to emergency relief teams in the aftermath of the tsunami:

  • SPOT 5 delivered images of the stricken coastline and nuclear power plants on 12 March 2011, the day after the tsunami.
  • GO Monitor experts provided daily analysis of what soon became a “no-go” area from images acquired by the FORMOSAT-2 satellite.
  • TerraSAR-X data enabled comparative analysis of the Sendai region before and after the earthquake, highlighting the tsunami’s destructive power and the debris left in its wake.

GO Monitor tracks clean-up and repair operations at Fukushima plant

Source Astrium Services

(Earthzine) In order to raise institutional and public awareness on the importance of Earth Observation applications on environmental monitoring for the broader Balkan Region, the OBSERVE project produced several multilingual, multimedia editions. At first, the OBSERVE flyer was translated in 12 languages and published on the project’s website.

A special-edition multilingual DVD, with easily comprehensible multimedia material in six languages, was produced. The videos include interviews from consortium partners along with multimedia presentations of Earth Observation topics and case studies. The following presentations are part of the multilingual edition:

1. “High Resolution Satellites Images for Urban Planning,” University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2. “Land cover and Land changes, Urbanization and touristic development pressure and flood risks,” University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Sofia, Bulgaria
3. “Cultural Heritage,” Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
4. “Disaster Management and Earthquakes,” GeoSat Company for Exploration and Development, Croatia
5. “Web GIS and 3D Cadastral Information,” GISDATA Ltd., Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia
6. “Data standards, regional Earth Observation stakeholders, and National Data Infrastructure Issues,” Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, Faculty for Civil Engineering, Skopje
7. “Environmental Applications and windmill farm Localization,” University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
8. “Landslides, determination of lake depths, Energy savings and Environmental Issues in Urban Environments,” Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Scholl of Rural and Surveying Engineering (Greece).

An example of a case study

Earthquakes and floods are the most devastating natural disasters. The Balkan area, as a part of the Mediterranean region, is seismotectonically the most active part of Europe. Numerous earthquakes occur in this region, most of them with catastrophic results. To depict the areas of the high seismotectonic activity, remote-sensing techniques, particularly satellite images, are very useful for registration of the structural elements that play a role in seismotectonic relations. Geotectonic movements in the Earth’s crust are the major contributors to earthquakes. The results of tectonic movements have been manifested through the geological features of the terrain: faults, folds and ring structures.

The tectonic map of the Western part of the Balkan shows the faults registered on satellite images, as well as the epicentres of large magnitude earthquakes. Most of these earthquakes’ epicentres are located along the large faults or at their intersections, as seen in Banja Luka, Zagreb and Ljubljana. For a detailed seismotectonic exploration, the high-resolution satellite radar images are very useful for the recognition of structural elements, and the intersections of strong faults. The catastrophic earthquake that occurred in Banja Luka in 1969 had its epicenter on the intersection between faults of different orientation

More info at
By Petros Patias, posted on October 1st, 2012 in Articles, Earth Observation

Two images from the Landsat 7 satellite are included in the new U.S Post Office series of 15 Earthscapes Forever stamps. Released October 1 to kick off National Stamp Collecting Month, the stamps vividly portray America’s diverse landscapes as viewed from heights of several hundred feet above the Earth to several hundred miles in space.


“Once you’ve seen the world from above, you never look at it quite the same way again,” said U.S. Postal Service Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Joseph Corbett, Washington. “That’s why the Postal Service is proud to offer these Earthscapes stamps, which invite us to take a bird’s eye view of the land we all share.”

The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA. Remote-sensing satellites, such as the Landsat series, help scientists to observe the world beyond the power of human sight, to monitor changes, and to detect critical trends in the conditions of natural resources. USGS conducts the daily operations of the Landsat 7 satellite.

Earthscapes

The Earthscapes collection presents examples of three broad categories of the way that human actions intersect with the land — natural, agricultural, and urban. The colorfully patterned portraits were all created high above the planet’s surface, either carefully composed by photographers in aircraft or routinely imaged by the Landsat 7 satellite while orbiting the Earth at an altitude of over 400 miles.

Each stamp, within its limited amount of space, represents only a stylized fragment of a geographical area, which may or may not be typical of a particular region. Still, they offer stamp customers an opportunity to see the world in a new way.

The two stamps that feature Landsat images — Volcanic Crater and Center-pivot irrigation — depict a natural disaster site, Mount Saint Helens, and an agricultural practice that is common in the Garden City, Kansas area.

Volcanic Crater

Mount St. Helens and its surrounding area continue to recover from the explosive eruption of May 1980. Shades of white and gray indicate still-bare slopes; dark “rivers” are deep channels cut by fast-moving flows of hot ash, rock, and gas. Green represents regrowth of vegetation.

Center-pivot irrigation

Circular patterns on Kansas cropland show center-pivot sprinkler systems have been at work. Red circles indicate healthy, irrigated crops; lighter circles represent harvested crops. Corn, wheat, alfalfa, soybeans, and grain sorghum account for most of the irrigated acreage in Kansas.

A Long View from Space

Two images from the Landsat 7 satellite were included in the U.S Post Office series of 15 Earthscapes Forever stamps released Oct. 1, 2012.

Remote-sensing satellites, such as the Landsat series, help scientists to observe the world beyond the power of human sight, to monitor changes, and to detect critical trends in the conditions of natural resources. Data supplied by Landsat supports the improvement of human and environmental health, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery, and crop monitoring.

USGS archives and distributes the massive amount of Earth observation data that has been collected by the Landsat satellite series since 1972. This extended record — now four decades long — forms an impartial, comprehensive, and easily accessed register of human and natural changes on the land.

Earth as Art

Beyond the scientific information they confer, some Landsat images are simply striking to look at, as illustrated in the Earthscapes collection. In fact, among the millions of freely accessible Landsat images, many present spectacular views of mountains, valleys, and islands; forests, grasslands, and agricultural patterns. By selecting certain features and coloring them from a digital palate, the USGS has created a series of Earth as Art perspectives that demonstrate an artistic resonance in land imagery and provide a special avenue of insight about the geography of each scene.

As part of the Landsat 40th Anniversary Celebration this summer, the USGS and NASA held an online contest in which more 14,000 people voted on their Top Five favorite Earth as Art images.

On the horizon

NASA is preparing to launch the next Landsat satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), on February 11, 2013, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. LDCM will be the most technologically advanced satellite in the Landsat series. LDCM sensors take advantage of evolutionary advances in detector and sensor technologies to improve performance and increase reliability. Once it successfully achieves orbit, LDCM will join the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites as Landsat 8 to continue the Landsat data record.

Links and resources
USGS Landsat
NASA Landsat
Earth as Art Image Gallery
History and overview of the Landsat program

Source

(1st October 2012) The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has reported that South Africa is considering constructing a 250 kg to 400 kg Earth observation satellite, as the country’s contribution to the proposed African Resource and Environmental Management satellite constellation (ARMC).


“This would entail a satellite development programme of four and [a] half years, building on the experience of the subsystems developed for the Sumbandilasat mission,” stated the DST in its answer. “The full programme costs for such a satellite would be R450-million and will be sourced from the national fiscus.”

“Government, through the DST and its agency, the South African National Space Agency (Sansa), will take the lead in managing South Africa’s interest in the ARMC,” affirmed the DST. The proposed new satellite would operate from a low Earth orbit and would have a planned lifespan of seven years.

The ARMC project was launched, on paper, in 2009 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Algeria, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. It is hoped that the ARMC will be composed of at least three low Earth orbit imaging satellites.

“Apart from the development of a world-class satellite, the other main benefit of the ARMC will be the supply of high resolution image data regularly enough for African remote sensing scientists to extract more temporal facts about environmental changes on the African continent and thereby lay the basis for indigenous African environmental, climate change and disaster monitoring and management systems,” explained the DST. “The satellite is expected to serve the environmental decision making needs of the South African government.”

Sansa’s first Earth observation satellite, Sumbandila (also referred to as Sumbandilasat), designed and built in South Africa, failed last year. This means that the country currently has no operational Earth observation satellite.

Algeria currently operates Alsat-2, designed and built in Europe, while Nigeria has the NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X Earth observation satellites in operation. Although both Nigerian satellites were designed and built in the UK, NigeriaSat-X was actually assembled by Nigerian engineers and technicians. Algeria and Nigeria are already members of the international Disaster Management Constellation (DMC). The other members of the DMC are China, Spain, Turkey and the UK.

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter

Source

Gisat has contributed into this year’s European Earth Monitoring Competition – the GMES Masters 2012.

UrbanAtlas Exploration Tool prepared by Gisat, is a demonstrator showing how huge potential of complex results from the GMES services can be unlocked using flexible software framework supporting user-friendly exploration of spatial and socio-economic data in web environment. The Tool is based on the WebTool technology developed by Gisat, integrating different modes of presentation in flexible, user-friendly, active and interlinked way with instant application response.

UrbanAtlas Exploration Tool provides advanced but still intuitive interface, where different modes of presentation (maps, tables, graphs) are interlinked and data can thus be easily visualized, further explored, analyzed or combined with socio-economic statistics. Compiled from thousands of satellite images, the GMES Urban Atlas represents an unique dataset for the first time harmonizing land cover and land use information on city/regional scale across Europe. UrbanAtlas Exploration Tool presents the great potential of the GMES Urban Atlas, in relation to Urban Audit statistical data, to support various strategic planning and decision making activities.

The UrbanAtlas Exploration Tool can be explored here

Acknowledgement
The WebTool framework technology builts on various Open Source software initiatives and GISAT’ further research and development activities in the UrbanAtlas+ project supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the FP7 HLanData project co-financed by EC.

More information at GISAT

Following the success of the Gisat‘s service case within the frame of the joint ESA / World Bank EOWORLD initiative, Gisat has been selected by the World Bank in two stage competitive call as the consultant providing services for web based geospatial software platform PUMA – the Platform for Urban Management and Analysis.

PUMA is being developed to enable World Bank staff in the East Asia region working at the metropolitan and city scale to derive a standard preliminary analysis that better informs the priorities and facilitates the cross-sector coordination of their investment and advisory activities. The platform and its outputs will help the World Bank and its clients develop a shared understanding of the long-term spatial, economic and environmental implications of land use, spatial development and infrastructure investment choices. This assignment is part of the World Bank’s larger “East Asia and Pacific Regional Urban Flagship” that will support economically efficient, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable urbanization in East Asian countries.

PUMA will be used to produce standard city profiles that will draw on the various layers of data and functions described in detail below, and at the same time enable user-driven customized analysis. Gisat‘s services include both production of multi-temporal land cover / land use layers for selected metropolitan areas based on Earth Observation data and development of the software framework for the platform implementation using Open Source software solutions.

Please, find more about the ESA / World Bank EOWORLD initiative here and about the Gisat’s service case here

More information at GISAT