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Lokoja — ALL is now set for the launching of two Nigeria satellites to the space by the third quarter of next year, Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Alhassan Bako Zaku has disclosed.

Zaku made this known while speaking during the third annual national media conference on space and technology organized by the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) held in Lokoja, capital of Kogi State, recently stressing that the satellites are about 95 per cent complete.

The minister added that the two Earth Observation satellites namely, NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X are of high resolutions, explaining that Nigeriasat-2 carried a high-resolution imagery of 2.5m [pan] and 5m [mutispectral] along with a 32m spatial resolution payload that will be used to replace NigeriaSat-1 who have lifespan of five years which is still in the orbit.

Equally, he noted that Nigerian engineers using facilities of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited of the United Kingdom solely built NigeriaSat-X, which is the first indigenous Earth Observation satellites that will be launched into space.

In his remark, Governor Ibrahim Idris commended the effort of the agency for its effort in taking the country to the citadel of technological advancement through the launching of NigeriaSat-1 in 2003 and the deorbited NigComSat-1in 2007, which is a technological breakthrough for the nation, adding that the launching of the satellites marked the country march towards technological development and consequently socio-economic development of the nation.

Earlier, the Director-General of the agency, Dr. Seidu Onailo Mohammed, explained that the idea behind the media workshop was to assist the journalists with relevant information that will go along way in reshaping the views, interest and understanding of the ordinary man in the country in space science and technology and the benefits that abound in its exploration.

SOURCE

Meteo- France, the UK Met Office, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) recently held the 2nd Workshop on, The Use of GIS/OGC Standards in Meteorology at the Conference International Centre at Meteo-France, Toulouse, France, from 23-25 November 2009.

See http://www.meteo.fr/cic/meetings/gis-ogc/ for details

Workshop participants reviewed applications of OGC and other standard Web services, encodings, and analytical methodologies being used across the meteorology community; discussed the relationship between the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and OGC; and defined a roadmap for further activities of the OGC Meteorology & Oceanography Domain Working Group. This working group provides an open forum on meteorological and oceanographic systems interoperability and a formal process for developing international consensus standards that may be submitted to the WMO Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) for adoption.

David Arctur, Director of Interoperability Programs at OGC said, “This workshop and the successful 2008 workshop hosted by ECMWF and the UK Met Office showed many implementations of the OGC Web Map Service Interface Standard (WMS) for meteorology. Using this standard and others improves the usability of weather information in fields such as aviation, transportation and disaster management. We are looking forward to deepening the already very good relationship that the OGC has with the Meteo and Oceanographic communities in the future.”

The Met Office ( http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/ ) and Meteo-France ( http://france.meteofrance.com/ ) are the UK’s and France’s National Weather Services. They are among the world’s leading weather forecast centres and main contributors to the United Nations University Global Environment Information Centre (GEIC).

The European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) ( http://www.ecmwf.int/ ) is an international European organization located in Reading, UK. It is the world’s leading centre for Medium Range Forecast.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 385 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.

Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org

SOURCE

European nations have been given a few more weeks to find the money to fund a key Earth observation satellite…

The Jason-3 spacecraft must be ordered soon if a remarkable 18-year record of ocean height is to be maintained.

Eumetsat, which looks after Europe’s weather satellites, needs at least 58m euros ($87m; £53m) from its member states to initiate the programme.

Jason-3 would launch in 2013, allowing time to cross-check its data in orbit with the current Jason-2 mission.

Only by flying the pair in tandem for a period of months can scientists minimise calibration errors between the two satellites’ datasets.

The Eumetsat Council has extended the deadline for interested member states to subscribe to Jason-3 through the end of the year into January.

Co-operative programme

The altimetry project stretches back to 1992, and provides the global reference data for satellite-measured ocean topography. It is the Jason series and its predecessor, the Topex/Poseiden spacecraft, that have traced the recent 3mm per year rise in sea levels.

The UK funding contribution to Jason-3 is… being actively addressed in government. Bruce Truscott, UK Met Office

The surface height information has been invaluable to oceanographers, weather forecasters and climatologists.

This week’s Council Meeting of Eumetsat recognised that a number of member states needed more time to organise their financing.

The total cost of the Jason-3 programme is estimated to be 252m euros ($380m; £228m), with the biggest individual contributions pledged by the lead nations – the US and France.

With the EU and the European Space Agency also willing to contribute to the flagship project, Eumetsat members are being asked to find 63.6m euros, with a requirement that binding commitments cover at least 90% of that figure to trigger development work.

Biggest members

So far, 13 out of 19 potential participating states have subscribed to the programme.

Among the six outstanding nations are Eumetsat’s two biggest members – Germany and the UK.

Their participation could be critical to the outcome of the subscription process.

Bruce Truscott at the UK Met Office, which leads the UK’s involvement in Eumetsat, told BBC News: “We recognise the potential value offered by the Jason-3 satellite programme and the need to carefully consider the relative merits of our national investments.

“The UK funding contribution to Jason-3 is therefore being actively addressed in government, with a view to reaching a conclusion before the declaration due date at the end of December.”

By Jonathan Amos. Science reporter, BBC News
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

“Related information at Eumetsat”:
http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/News/Press_Releases/715819?l=en

A “saline & sodic soil map” and a “soil compaction map” are now available for the EU territory

On 22 December 2009, the EU Soil Portal published the two new soil maps of the EU territory.

The saline and sodic soil map demonstrates the distribution of natural saline or sodic soils as well as salt affected areas within the EU. Salinisation is the accumulation of soluble salts of sodium, magnesium and calcium in soil which are poisonous for the plants and leads towards reduced fertility. It is considered as one of the greatest environmental threats.

The soil compaction map provides a global picture of the European compaction soils which occurs when the weight of livestock or heavy machinery compresses the soil. Compaction is the reduction of soil pore space which leads to the reduced ability of rain absorption and causes various problems for growing the plants.

More information at

A description of the products and services developed by the MyOcean project is now available online

MyOcean is the EU FP7 Research Project responsible for the development of the GMES Marine Monitoring Service.

MyOcean develops upgraded European capabilities for reference marine information and provides a wide range of key ocean indicators such as temperature, salinity or currents in oceans and seas.

In cooperation notably with national metrological services, the European Environment Agency and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), MyOcean undertakes the pre-operational validation of the GMES Marine Service. The project also aims at proposing a governance structure for the GMES Marine Service.

The products and services developed by MyOcean are described in a “Product / Service Porfolio” document which is available for dowloading on this website.

“Download MyOcean “Product / Service Porfolio” document”:http://www.gmes.info/fileadmin/files/4.%20GMES%20Services/GMES_Marine_Service_Portfolio_Jan2010.pdf

Source Gmes.Info

Gisat: Urban Atlas, Fragia project and new office…


Exploring UrbanAtlas

Gisat signed a contract with the ESA for the UrbanAtlas+ project

Gisat has been awarded a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) for UrbanAtlas+ project proposing to explore and demonstrate the full potential of ongoing GMES UrbanAtlas service production for spatial planning applications.

In particular, the subject of the UrbanAtlas+ project is to focus this demonstration on:
• urban growth dynamics monitoring and assessment providing insight into the land consumption & formation processes involved,
• socio-economic data integration supporting integration of Urban Atlas data with conventional statistics in general, testing the standard Urban Audit set of indicators in particular.

The Urban Atlas is part of the implementation of the Global Monitoring of Environment and Security (GMES) land monitoring service, financed by the European Commission with the support from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and produced in collaboration with the Member States the European space industry. The Urban Atlas cover all EU capitals and a large sample of large and medium-sized cities participating in the European Urban Audit, a data collection covering over 300 cities in the EU, with full operability foreseen for 2011. Future editions of the Urban Atlas are planned in 3-5 year intervals to complement the Urban Audit exercise. More on GMES Urban Atlas activity can be found here

The Urban Audit, initiative of the Directorate-General for Regional Policy, regularly provides urban statistics for cities across EU. It is co-financed by the European Commission and managed in close consultation with EUROSTAT and National Statistical Institutes in EU Member States. More on the Urban Audit activities can be found here

Gisat has long experience with Urban Atlas and Urban Audit data utilization from ESA GSE GSELAND project, where Urban Atlas service has been already demonstrated for comparison of urban territories structure nationally or across Europe. Also, Gisat is familiar with land accounting approaches from the land and ecosystem accounting (LEAC) activities done for European Environmental Agency (EEA). Some parts of the UrbanAtlas+ methodology have been already pre-tested by GISAT during Prague M11 demonstrator work (prepared for the City Development Authority of the Municipality of Prague during the GSELAND project) with very promising results. Nevertheless, the above mentioned capabilities for Urban Atlas datasets have not been fully explored yet, so methodology for their implementation has to be still developed.

UrbanAtlas+ project represents follow-up of these activities and aims full design, implementation and demonstration of such framework. While during the UrbanAtlas+ project duration (26 months) focus is primarily on the application areas serving urban/regional planning user community in the Czech Republic, the results is foreseen to be applicable to support Europe-wide acceptance and application of GMES Urban Atlas service.

JRC chose Fragria

Gisat in winning consortia responding to the JRC tender on agri-environmental studies

Gisat is a member of winning consortia responding to the JRC tender on agri-environmental studies. The consortium led by Alterra (Centre Geo-information), the Netherlands has been awarded the FRamework Contract for the Provision of Thematic Studies in the field of AGRI-Environmental Assessment (FRAGRIA).

FRAGRIA will contribute to the improvement of the timely monitoring of agricultural land use state and changes, and their impact on the environment at the European, national and regional levels.

The objective is to fulfill the needs of:
• European users who are involved in the definition of European directives, strategies and of the CAP: DG Agri, DG Env and EEA,
• Users responsible for the implementation of European directives, strategies and of the CAP: agriculture and environment ministries, national and regional environmental agencies, national payment agencies, regional water agencies.
Based on users’ requirements, the FRAGRIA aims at developing and improving agri-environmental indicators assessing:
• Conceptual development for agri-environmental indicators,
• Assessment of the environmental performance of different farming systems,
• Assessment of climate change impacts and mitigation strategies on agriculture.

GISAT has moved to a new office

Since 2010 Gisat can be found in the brand-new office close to the Prague City Center

We believe this opens us new possibilities for further expansion and improvement of our services and products. We are looking forward to meet you in our new office.

Please note our new address as of 1st January 2010:

Gisat s.r.o.
Milady Horakove 57
170 00 Praha 7
Czech Republic

You may find detailed info how to get to our new office here

All news can be found also on GISAT web site

A description of the products and services developed by the MACC project is now available online.

MACC is the EU FP7 Research Project responsible for the development of the GMES Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

MACC monitors the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere and predicts regional air quality. It provides data that are critical to the understanding of climate and
to the improvement and validation of the computer models that are used to predict climate change. It also provides information important for the protection of health and for the efficient exploitation of sources of renewable energy.

MACC monitors the distributions and long-range transport of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, aerosols that result from both natural processes and human activities, and reactive gases such as tropospheric ozone and nitrogen dioxide. It provides global forecasts of reactive gases and aerosols, as well as detailed forecasts and assessments of air quality in Europe. It also provides records and forecast for stratospheric ozone, UV radiation and solar energy.

The products and services developed by MACC are described in a “Product / Service Porfolio” document which is available for dowloading on this website.

Download MACC Product / Service Porfolio document

SOURCE GMES.Info

On 30 December 2009, the European Commission (DG Enterprise) published the names of two successful organizations that applied to the tender on implementation of an initial GMES service for geospatial reference data access.

The contract award was granted to the Spanish company Indra Espacio SA and Italian company SITI (Istituto Superiore sui Sistemi Territoriali per l’Innovazione).

Reference data are in many aspects crucial for the GMES services. According to the Inspire Directive, all the data providers of the Member States are obliged to make this data available. The aim of the contract is to provide a central service to access these reference data providers in a unified manner.

More information on the contract

More information on the Inspire Directive

SOURCE Gmes.info

VCS: Eumetsat collaboration

EUMETSAT Assigned VCS to Deliver a HRPT Reference User Station (RUS)

VCS Space has been awarded a new contract by EUMETSAT to deliver a HRPT Reference User Station (RUS) which predicts the satellite track and which receives satellite images and other related information/data from meteorological polar orbiting satellites.
For reception of data from meteorological satellites like NOAA, FengYun and MetOP a so called High Resolution Picture Transmission receiving system is required. All those satellites are equipped with radiometers for capturing cloud images in real time having spatial resolutions of about 1 km in several spectral channels reaching from visible to infrared channels.

The HRPT Reference User Station is consisting of the following components
HRPT El/Az tracking antenna with 2.0m reflector,
• Combined feed, low noise amplifier (LNA), downconverter,
• Tracking system for L-band satellites,
• Digital Receiver and Demodulator,
• Acquisition workstation equipped with 2met!® Application Software

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