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PARIS, 3 Jan2012 — Earth imagery provider GeoEye on Jan. 4 said it signed a new multimillion-dollar agreement with Russia’s ScanEx company to complete a national map of Russian land properties.

Under the contract, Herndon, Va.-based GeoEye will provide Moscow-based ScanEx with imagery from GeoEye’s archive of data taken by the GeoEye-1 high-resolution optical Earth observation satellite. In the second phase in what GeoEye said is a multiyear agreement, GeoEye starting in 2012 will provide ScanEx with new imagery of Russian territory to support the creation of a nationwide map of land properties.

This is the latest in a series of contracts ScanEx has signed with GeoEye and with Europe’s Astrium Services, which operates the Spot 5 medium-resolution satellite and is building two similar follow-on spacecraft, Spot 6 and Spot 7.

ScanEx’s earlier contract with GeoEye, which GeoEye similarly characterized as valued at several million dollars, called for imagery to be provided by GeoEye’s older Ikonos satellite.

ScanEx is under contract to the Russian Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography to provide maps of all Russian property. Olga Gershenzon, ScanEx’s founder and vice president, said in a Jan. 4 statement that the company has already mapped 49 million land parcels and placed them in a Web-based system for use by Russian government agencies and the public, with the Web portal attracting 12,000 visits per day.

“It is important that ScanEx complete this project on deadline,” Gershenzon said. “[T]o execute this contract, we are acquiring significant amounts of GeoEye-1 imagery.”

Source Spacenews

Several contract award announced in the domains of flood alert and land monitoring

Three contract award decisions were announced on Tenders Electronic Daily during the period 24-31/12/11:

Operational computational centre of EFAS

The award decision has been taken in favour of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF for a total value of 2 929 961 EUR (excluding VAT).

The aim of this framework contract placed by the JRC is to progressively integrate parts of the European flood awareness system (EFAS) into the GMES emergency management service, in part under the GMES initial operation phase (GIO).

This framework contract considers the setting-up and implementation of the computational tasks related to the European flood awareness system and operation of the system on a guaranteed 24/7 basis thereafter together with associated testing, and research and development.

EFAS dissemination centre

The award decision has been taken in favour of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, for a total value of 1 022 000 EUR (excluding VAT).

The aim of the framework contract placed by the JRC is to progressively integrate parts of the European flood awareness system (EFAS) into the GMES emergency management service, in collaboration with the European Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) of DG ECHO.

This framework contract deals with the outsourcing of the dissemination of EFAS results. The contractor will analyse EFAS results as provided by the EFAS computational centre twice a day on a guaranteed 7/365 basis, consult on a daily basis the situation with the other EFAS centres, investigate the ongoing flood situation in Europe and issue flood early warning information to partners of the EFAS network including MIC. Furthermore, feedback on flood forecasts and performance of the system are being collected and EFAS annual meetings organised in close collaboration with the Joint Research Centre.

EFAS hydrological data collection centre

The award decision has been taken in favour of Elimco Sistemas s.l., for a total value of 550 000 EUR (excluding VAT).

The aim of this framework contract placed by the JRC is to progressively integrate parts of the European flood awareness system (EFAS) into the GMES emergency management service, in part under the GMES initial operation phase (GIO).

This contract refers to the EFAS hydrological data collection centre. The contractor will manage an existing network of data providers for real time hydrological data, set up the data collection system for discharge and water level, implement quality control on the real time data and send the data in agreed format to the Joint Research Centre.

Land monitoring services: high resolution land cover characteristics of 5 main land cover types

The framework contract consists of six lots. The award decision has been taken in favour of:

The framework contract aims at providing high resolution land cover characteristics data complementary to the Corine land cover map 2012 that will be produced in parallel by the European environmental observation and information network (Eionet) and the EEA from the same satellite data. The 5 high resolution layers deal with artificial surfaces, forest areas, agriculture areas, wetlands, water bodies for the reference year 2012. The production of the 5 high resolution layers (HRLs) as part of the GMES initial operations (GIO) pan-European land monitoring services will be organised as a mix of centralised production by industry and decentralised delivery by EEA member and cooperating countries.

The different lots address the following areas:

  • Lot 1: Imperviousness and forest in northern Europe
  • Lot 2: Imperviousness and forest in central Europe, ‘partim’ Atlantic region
  • Lot 3: Imperviousness and forest in central Europe, ‘partim’ Alpine, continental, and Pannonian region
  • Lot 4: Imperviousness and forest in southern Europe, ‘partim’ west and central Mediterranean region
  • Lot 5: Imperviousness and forest in southern Europe, ‘partim’ east Mediterranean region
  • Lot 6: Grasslands, wetlands and water bodies in the EEA39

Source GMES.Info

DigitalGlobe, the firm that provides much of the imagery for Google Earth, is launching a next-generation satellite in 2014.

However, the super-sharp images of the WorldView-3 aren’t for Google and Bing Maps: They’re going straight to the military and intelligence agencies.

DigitalGlobe, the Colorado-based imaging firm responsible for much of Google Earth’s, Bing Maps’, and Google Maps’ content, has a new satellite on the way. The WorldView-3 is a super-high-resolution remote-sensing satellite slated for a 2014 launch. Ball Aerospace & Technologies is building the satellite and ITT will be responsible for the WorldView-3’s optical imager. However, the primary audience for Worldview-3 pictures won’t be Google. Images from the new satellite are mainly intended to be sold and licensed to the U.S. government.

Firms such as DigitalGlobe and their main competitor, Virginia’s GeoEye, earn most of their money from their satellite constellations (or, for the rest of us, their satellites in space) custom-snapping pictures for customers or from resale of the regular imagery the satellites make. These clients range from Google to mining companies to, most importantly, the U.S. government.

Unfortunately, the best imagery that comes out of high-end satellites such as the WorldView-3 won’t make it onto Google Earth anytime soon. U.S. regulations prohibit commercial customers from purchasing imagery with anything better than a .5 meter ground resolution. This means that, unless you work for the federal government or for a close foreign ally, you won’t be able to see satellite footage of yourself lounging in a hammock just yet.

The best images to make it out of the WorldView-3 will have a considerably better resolution than .5 meters. Once complete, the satellite will have an image resolution that ranges between .3 and .46 meters. Government regulations require images from the WorldView-2 and WorldView-3 to be resampled to a lower resolution before being offered to private customers.

Intelligence services and the Defense Department will be able to use WorldView-3 for satellite imagery that is crisper and clearer than anything currently on the market. Instead of Google Earth’s blurry (though admittedly cool) close-up imagery, government customers will have access to images that look like they jumped out of a science fiction movie.

According to DigitalGlobe CTO Walter Scott, the company’s three current satellites photograph the earth’s surface approximately six times a year, collecting between 2 and 3 pentabytes of imagery annually. Not all of this data is provided to Google, which receives DigitalGlobe imagery through a special service agreement. Microsoft has a similar agreement that provides content for Bing Maps.

While Google is a valuable customer, DigitalGlobe’s gravy train is the provision of satellite imagery to government agencies. In an interview with Fast Company, Scott noted that nearly 60% of the firm’s business comes from the U.S. government. That is where the Worldview-3’s super-high resolution kicks in: It’s also where the whole idea of private satellite companies gets really interesting.

The United States government operates the world’s finest collection of surveillance satellites. Agencies such as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) are responsible for running a sprawling intelligence system with staggering technical assets. Another agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), is responsible for interpreting and understanding the massive amount of satellite imagery the government encounters from both proprietary and commercial sources.

DigitalGlobe is among the largest of these commercial sources. This past October, the firm inked an extremely lucrative one-year, $37.9 million contract with the NGA. The contract mainly requires DigitalGlobe to make plenty of cloud-free images, supply the NGA with time-sensitive imagery of “high-priority geographic locations,” and with non-stop delivery of daily imagery within 24 hours of collection. In Scott’s words, NGA’s collaboration with DigitalGlobe is an “affordable way of getting intelligence” for the federal government.

One major advantage for the federal government is that working with companies such as DigitalGlobe and GeoEye liberates them from many of the bureaucratic and legal constraints that the military and intelligence agencies face. The military can share privately obtained satellite images with foreign allies without dealing with Cold War-era restrictions; government agencies can also obtain imagery without having to deal with omnipresent department infighting and bureaucratic inertia. More worryingly, the easy availability of commercial satellite imagery to government intelligence agencies raises a host of civil liberties concerns related to domestic spying.

Despite landing a large contract, DigitalGlobe is worrying that changing defense priorities could alter their government partnerships. Scott expressed concern to Fast Company that budget cuts in fiscal year 2013 to the Defense Department and various intelligence agencies could limit purchases of commercial imagery. In a recent op-ed for trade paper Defense News, Scott claimed that relying on services such as DigitalGlobe saves the Defense Department money.

However, the private satellite industry has one important thing going for it: Continuing geopolitical unrest. Barring a miracle, the situation in Syria will continue to decline and the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will divert U.S. resources for years to come. In addition, there is always the worry that some new nightmare—Iran? East Asia? The Euro collapse?—will cause an upsurge in government purchases of private satellite imagery. And, if not… well, Google might just be able to negotiate a better deal.

Source

On 30/11/2011, the European Commission adopted its Communication on the “European Earth monitoring programme (GMES) and its operations (from 2014 onwards) (COM 831).

This communication presents its proposals for the future funding, governance and operations of the GMES programme for the period 2014 – 2020.

As far as funding is concerned, the European Commission has made an assessment involving three different options. Based on its assessment, the Commission proposes to opt for the creation of a specific GMES fund, similar to the model chosen for the European Development Fund, with financial contributions from all Member States, based on their Gross National Income (GNI). The management of the fund would be delegated to the European Commission.

As far as governance is concerned, the European Commission proposes to remain responsible for the political supervision and the overall coordination of the GMES, on behalf of the Union. The Commission proposes to delegate certain management tasks (e.g. evaluation, negotiation and follow-up of contracts) to the European GNSS Agency (GSA). These tasks would however not include operations.

For operations, the European Commission proposes that the technical coordination of service is entrusted to several European entities, depending on their knowledge and expertise (e.g. the technical coordination of the land monitoring service could be entrusted to the European Environment Agency, the technical coordination of the atmosphere monitoring service could be entrusted to the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting, the technical coordination of the emergency management service could be entrusted to the European Emergency Response Centre, etc.).

The full text of the Communication is available here

Source

[SatNews] NSR’s most recent research on the Earth Observation (EO) market confirmed the importance of government funding for both the supply and the demand side of the business.

Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation, 3rd Edition report, NSR found that 69 percent of commercial EO satellite operators’ revenues came from government and military users with close to half of these from North America and Europe. As those two regions are now crippled by debt restructuring, lower financial ratings and spending reduction plans, commercial EO operators are generally expected to be affected by budget cuts to help reduce public debt burden. NGA’s Enhanced View (the single largest contract for commercial EO data) accounted for 35 percent of all EO satellite operator revenues last year, a statistic that a group of lawmakers from both sides of the House defended in a recent letter to the U.S. Government.

The NGA also has smaller contracts with MDA Corporation, Telespazio and Astrium GIS for radar imagery for its internal U.S. Government clients. All of these contracts take up so much capacity that they can constrain the availability of commercial satellite for other users outside the U.S. Government. These contracts certainly represent large exposure for major EO satellite operators such as GeoEye and DigitalGlobe that can highlight the downside of having top-heavy government and military businesses these days.

Enhanced View, in addition to benefitting the intelligence community, is also about supporting the U.S. EO industry. If a government order decreases it, spending levels could be enough to maintain the industrial base, at approximately the former NGA Next View contract (around $12.5 million per month per company), or about half of Enhanced View’s spending level. The much smaller radar contracts that NGA has with MDA, Telespazio, Astrium GIS and even the recent award to RapidEye are more likely to be cut simply based on their size and the fact that it is easier politically to cut outsourcing from non-U.S. operators. Does this mean all these operators will suffer more? For DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, Enhanced View generated almost two-thirds of their 2010 revenues, with government and military contracts overall shooting up to between 75 and 80 percent, while international sales came in at about 20 to 25 percent. Cutting it at the level of Next View could mean layoffs and reduced investment, in particular on their satellites.

For Astrium GEO-Information Services, NSR believes that it has much less reliance on U.S. Government revenues proportionally even if half of its revenues are generated by government and military orders. Canada’s MDA EO data revenue estimates hover around 65 percent overall in this same segment, while Telespazio/e-Geos has approximately 70 percent of total revenues coming from government and military customers. However, thanks to orders from European, Latin American, Asian, and other non-U.S. governments, their exposure to U.S. cuts is much more limited in relative size.

In essence, NGA’s Enhanced View cuts could affect GeoEye and DigitalGlobe more than other non-U.S. operators and as a result, favor operators that are best positioned today to sell to government and military customers outside the U.S. This only reinforces the trend of EO operators pushing into non-Western markets as of late.

Source

In March 2011, EARSC published a position paper that provided views on how the European EOServices industry could support and benefit from a publicly-owned GMES infrastructure * ; the goal being to maximise the overall economic return from the substantial pubic-sector investment.

One of the main conclusions and recommendations from that paper concerned the need to establish a suitable policy for the data generated by the GMES space component and the information products generated by the GMES Services.

The European Commission will shortly prepare legislation to define the GMES Data Policy. EARSC, as the organisation that represents the EO geo-information services industry in Europe, puts forward the views of its members on some details concerning such a data policy.

In our previous paper, we recommended to establish a clear data policy, with appropriate procurement budgets for satellite data, core GMES services and GMES value-added, downstream services:

  • Raw data from Sentinels should be free and open.
  • Data from commercial satellite operators should be procured under appropriate license conditions.
  • Core services to be freely and unconditionally available to all users and downstream partners.
  • Downstream services should be procured commercially on a fair and competitive basis.
  • A registration system for GMES users should be put in place to ensure that basic quality conditions are met and licensing conditions are respected as well as achieving fair competition on the international market.

In this paper, we build upon these recommendations.

EARSC positon paper on GMES data policy

Adoption of a resolution on “Benefits of space for the security of European citizens”

The 29 ministers of the ESA-EU Space Council met in Brussels on 6 December 2011 and underlined the importance of space systems for security.

At this occasion, they reaffirmed GMES as a priority for the EU to ensure the development and exploitation of sustainable GMES services and infrastructures in the medium- and long-term, and urged the European Commission to take the necessary and timely actions to secure the continuity of the programme and to reassure GMES users and stakeholders of its commitment to the GMES programme.

The text of the resolution can be downloaded here

Source]=639&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=f375a35b5601f1aede5706b9957ea37d

The Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies (NEREUS) has published a position paper entitled “Provisions for GMES in the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020”.

In this document, NEREUS “urges the European Commission to ensure sustainable funding within the framework of the Multi Financial Framework of 2014-2020 in order to secure the timely delivery of Europe’s GMES flagship programme”.

NEREUS considers that whereas GMES is both an opportunity for economic growth and a vital tool for territorial management for the regions, the European Commission’s proposal to exclude GMES from the Multi Financial Framework for 2014-2020 will increase inequalities between EU countries.

The position paper also examines through a series of concrete examples the impacts that the European Commission’s proposal would have on regionally-specific applications.

The position paper can be downloaded here

NEREUS is an initiative by regions from all over Europe. Emphasis is placed on the use of space technologies. The network aims to explore the benefits of space technologies for Regions and their citizens and to spread their applications. To know more about NEREUS, please visit www.nereus-regions.eu

(December 2011) Furthering Europe’s capacity to monitor atmospheric pollution, ESA has awarded a contract worth 45.5 million euro to Astrium UK to act as prime contractor for the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite system.

Scheduled to be launched in 2015, Sentinel-5 Precursor (Sentinel-5P) will be the first satellite dedicated to monitoring atmospheric chemistry for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme.

Astrium UK is now responsible for the delivery and integration of the satellite platform and system that make up the mission as a whole.

The contract was signed by ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Volker Liebig, and Astrium’s UK National Director for Earth Observation, Navigation and Science, Miranda Mills.

Prof. Liebig said, “This contract marks another significant milestone in the development of our series of Sentinel satellites to serve GMES.

“Sentinel-5P will ensure we have continuous data to monitor the ozone hole and tropospheric pollution.”

As Sciamachy on ESA’s Envisat and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura mission come to the end of their lives, Sentinel-5P will fill the gap between current atmospheric capabilities from low polar orbit and the launch of Sentinel-5, envisaged for around 2020.

Sentinel-5P will therefore ensure that atmospheric data are available for climate modelling and weather forecasting between 2015 and 2022.

The satellite will carry the Tropospheric Ozone Monitoring Instrument, or Tropomi. This advanced imaging absorption spectrometer will provide data on atmospheric trace gases and aerosols that affect air quality and climate.

It measures ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants at a higher resolution than currently available.

Tropomi is being developed in the Netherlands as a joint venture between ESA, the Netherlands Space Office NSO, the Dutch Royal Meteorological Institute KNMI, the Dutch Institute for Space Research SRON, TNO and Dutch Space.

With atmospheric pollution a major concern, three Sentinel missions dedicated to atmospheric monitoring are being developed for GMES.

Sentinel-4 will be carried on the Meteosat Third Generation satellites in geostationary orbit and Sentinel-5 will be carried on the MetOp Second Generation satellites in polar orbit from the end of the decade.

Through GMES, data from all the Sentinel missions will be made available as services for decision-makers to help manage the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security.

Source

On Dec. 7, 2001, NASA and the French Space Agency Centre Nationale d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) launched the Jason-1 satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., embarking on a planned three-to-five-year mission to study Earth’s ocean from space. Jason-1 celebrates 10 years of precisely measuring ocean surface topography.

The mission continues to reveal new insights into the ocean’s complicated circulation patterns, while providing a critical measure of climate change by contributing to a nearly 20-year record of global sea level monitoring from space.

Jason-1 is the successful follow-on mission to the NASA/French Space Agency’s pioneering Topex/Poseidon mission, which revolutionized our understanding of the dynamics of ocean circulation and global climate from 1992 to 2006.

In 2008, the meteorological agencies of the United States and Europe collaborated with NASA and CNES to launch the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite to build upon this unprecedented long-term record of consistent, continuous global observations of Earth’s ocean.

Early calibration phases of the missions allowed Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1, and now Jason-1 and Jason-2, to fly over identical ground tracks.

The resulting data streams from these “tandem missions” have provided seamless coverage between the three missions, allowing scientists to observe and study both short-lived events such as hurricanes, and interannual climate phenomena such as El Nino, La Nina and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

Other significant science results from the mission include studies of ocean circulation; the ties between the ocean and the atmosphere; and improved global climate forecasts and predictions.

“Jason-1 extended Topex/Poseidon’s record of global sea level rise, one of our most important indicators of climate change, into a second decade,” said Lee-Lueng Fu, Jason-1 project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., which manages the U.S. portion of the Jason-1 mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“The altimeter-observed geographic pattern of long-term sea level change is a landmark discovery of oceanography.”

The Jason missions don’t collect their observations in isolation, however. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-supported ocean-profiling float project, called Argo, was created to collect observations measured directly from the ocean surface and to complement the Jason data.

More recently, data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission have been combined with the altimetry data from Jason and Argo to give scientists a more complete picture of Earth’s changing ocean, providing an important global observing system for sea level and ocean circulation studies.

NASA is currently working with its partners NOAA, CNES and EUMETSAT on the next mission in the series, Jason-3, projected for launch in 2014. Concepts for future missions, including Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) and the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT), are currently in development.

“Jason-1 measures the ongoing rise in global sea level, which is a result of human-caused global warming,” said Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and Jason-3 project scientist.

“Driven by melting ice and expanding seawater, global sea level rise has become a powerful reminder of how fast humans are changing the climate. Along with its predecessor, Topex/Poseidon, and its successor, Jason-2, Jason-1 has kept a finger on the pulse of global climate change.”

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