Telespazio News
Presence in Farnborough. Summer School. LIMES in Cyprus
Presence in Farnborough. Summer School. LIMES in Cyprus
This year the annual Conference and Exhibition of the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE) took place in Rome at the “Nuova Fiera”.
The high number of attendees, the quality of the technical workshops, as well as the scientific profile of the speakers during the conference sessions have confirmed the importance of this event, now representing a point of reference worldwide for the scientific and technical community working in the oil & gas sector.
“We are really very happy for the growing visibility TRE is gaining within the oil&gas sector. The success of our booth at the EAGE exhibition in Rome clearly shows how this sector now appreciates the potential of remote sensing technologies for supporting reservoir monitoring activities, whether for primary or enhanced oil recovery processes, or for CO2 sequestration. In particular, more and more companies are now convinced that PSInSAR™ data are a unique source of information that will become a standard monitoring tool”; quotes Alessandro Ferretti, TRE Managing Director.
Source TRE
SENER opens new offices
SENER has recently opened a new office in the USA, in the San Francisco Financial District. This opening forms part of the company’s internationalisation process. The company hopes to coordinate projects all over the United States from this headquarters, particularly in the thermosolar energy field, for the implementation of turnkey engineering and construction projects for concentration solar energy plants. SENER has been testing the solar market in the USA for some time, and the new office therefore starts off with a big potential work portfolio.
In the same internationalisation process, SENER has opened a new office in Algeria, in the residential district of El Biar, in the city of Algiers. SENER, present on the Algerian market with big civil engineering projects, hopes to consolidate its business in this country with the introduction of short to medium-term production methods and local collaboration, and, finally with the diversification of its work in subsectors such as Railways, Ports and Airports. It is also looking for opportunities in the emblematic buildings subsector and as well as in hydraulic engineering. To date, the office is carrying out work such as the Oran tram, the Ouargla tram, the extension of the Algiers metro, the new Saida – Moulay Slissen railway for the Société Nationale des Transports Ferroviaires (SNTF), the modernisation of the electrified mining line in the East of Algeria (Tebessa), the Annaba – Ramdane Djamel stretch for OHL – ANESRIF, five control towers for the airports of Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Ghardaïa and Tamanrasset, and the extension of the Port of Arzew.
SENER Ingeniería y Sistemas, S.A. has won Prince Felipe Award for Business Excellence in the ‘Technological Innovation for Large Companies’ thanks to its CAD/CAE/CAM FORAN software.
The FORAN System, designed by the company in the 1960s, is currently one of the most used maritime construction programmes in the world, present in 130 shipyards in more than 27 countries. With this award, the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce acknowledges this software as a relevant technological product with proven success in Spain and abroad.
SENER’s chairman, Jorge Sendagorta, picked up the award for Technological Innovation for Large Companies from His Royal Highness the Prince of Asturias in the event that took place in the Madrid Municipal Conference Centre this morning, Thursday 19 June.
This award signifies the recognition of SENER’s track record, which in its 52 years experience has succeeded in establishing itself amongst the leading positions in International engineering in such different areas as Aerospace, Maritime, Energy and Processes engineering and Civil engineering and Architecture, and has cultivated a culture of excellence, recognised in all its projects.
In this 12th edition of the Prince Felipe Awards, SENER has also nominated in the ‘Business Competitiveness for Large Companies’ category.
SENER Ingeniería y Sistemas is now the leading multidisciplinary engineering firm in Spain, with a workforce of over 1,900 employees and a turnover of over 311 million euros. The company has offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, Seville, Algiers, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Mexico DF, Okayama (Japan), San Francisco and Warsaw.
SENER Ingeniería y Sistemas forms part of SENER Grupo de Ingeniería, the largest Spanish engineering group, with more than 4,500 employees and a turnover of over 753 million euros.
Its excellence culture is based on the corporate values of commitment to quality, independence and innovation in which the company invests 10% of its resources, enabling it to take part in some of the most technologically groundbreaking projects in recent years in all its business areas.
More info: http://www.foran.es
Source “SENER”:
The general aim of the BALWOIS Project is to create a community of major stakeholders in the field of water protection and water management involving scientists, private sector, experts, NGO’s, decision makers and broader public around the Balkans.
BALWOIS 2008 was organised by IB2E, METEO MAK, Hydrobiological Institute of Ohrid, Faculty of Civil Engineering at the “Sts. Cyril & Methodius” University in Skopje, University “St. Kliment Ohridski” – Bitola, the Hydrometeorological Service of Macedonia, and the Remote Sensing Application Centre (ReSAC, Bulgaria) under the patronage of the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning of the Republic of Macedonia and of the French Ambassador in Skopje.
ReSAC was one of the sponsors of the conference together with SPOT Image, who both participated as exhibitors of their services and products. ReSAC’s experts presented a report on the topic “Remote Sensing for the purposes of the Integrated Water Resources Management: Examples from Bulgaria”. Further, a joint workshop of ReSAC and SPOT Image was held with the thematic titles “From Satellite Data Distribution to Application Provision, Education and Consultation” and “Study for the integration of satellite imagery in the operational procedures of risk management in Bulgaria”.
Source RESAC
RapidEye AG and Dniprocosmos State Company have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) this month, joining together an arm of the Ukrainian Space Agency and RapidEye in a strategic partnership.
(Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, July 10, 2008).
This agreement will allow for the promotion of RapidEye’s products and services in the Ukraine.
“We are excited about this agreement, as it will further enhance awareness of RapidEye, and provide us with expert insight into the Ukrainian markets,” commented Axel Penndorf, one of RapidEye’s European Sales Representatives. “Dr. Voloshyn and his team at Dniprocosmos have an incredible knowledge base and may eventually assist with some of our product development specific to eastern Europe. We’re proud to have them as a partner.”
Collaboration between the two companies has already begun with the discussion of pilot projects designed especially for the agriculture and cartography industries.
About Dniprocosmos State Company:
Dniprocosmos State Company, located in Dnipropetrovsk, provides earth observation technologies for commercial and administrative use in Ukraine. Being a special-purpose branch of the National Space Agency in Ukraine, it introduces technologies for use of Earth observation data, thus linking space systems products with end users.
Dniprocosmos also provides preliminary processing of “raw” data received from national and foreign satellites, including multispectral image processing using non-standard
methods and algorithms and processing of satellite images in order to classify geographical areas (landscape, land cover elements classification etc.). The archive of Dniprocosmos provides operative and long-term satellite images storage, data search and Internet access to its electronic catalog and satellite images distribution.
Further information may be obtained from:http://dniprokosmos.dp.ua
About RapidEye:
RapidEye is an ISO-certified geospatial information provider focused on integrating customized and industry specific solutions into the workflow of global customers in agriculture, forestry, energy, infrastructure, government, security and emergency. In the summer of 2008, RapidEye will launch a constellation of five satellites capable of downloading over 4 million km² of high resolution, multi-spectral imagery per day. For more information please visit www.rapideye.de
RapidEye AG
Molkenmarkt 30 | 14776 Brandenburg/Havel | Germany
Toll Free (US): +1 800 940 3617
Phone: +49 3381 8904-0 | Fax: +49 3381 8904-101
info@rapideye.de | www.rapideye.de
Office in Beijing and MoU Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth
Richmond Hill, Ontario – July 9, 2008: PCI Geomatics®, a world leading developer of software and solutions for geospatial imaging applications, is pleased to announce plans to launch a new international office in Beijing, China. The new company, PCI Geomatics Beijing, will offer PCI Geomatics technology, services and solutions (under special license), for both the private and government sectors and will be led by Mr. Yubin Xin as Country Manager.
PCI Geomatics has sustained an extensive relationship with the Chinese market, established through a team of geospatial resellers throughout the country. PCI Geomatics Beijing will concentrate on providing imaging solutions to the geospatial market in China while continuing to work with our resellers.
“PCI Geomatics Beijing allows us to dramatically expand our efforts in providing the best technology and expertise to the people of China,” said Yubin Xin. “We look forward to offering our automated image pre-processing solutions (ProLines), as well as our image management and on demand mapping solutions to this marketplace.”
“PCI Geomatics continues to meet the demands of an ever changing industry – and with the opening of this office later in 2008 along with the exciting growth in the Chinese market, we are ideally suited to serving the Chinese geospatial community with our expertise,” said Dr. Robert Moses, President and CEO of PCI Geomatics.
The PCI Geomatics Beijing office will open for business in the latter part of 2008.
(Richmond Hill, Ontario – May 14, 2008) PCI Geomatics announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Under the terms of the MoU, collaborative plans are outlined for the development of an initial project for a Wetland Environment Monitoring and Applications System in China, with additional projects under review. The MoU highlights the purpose of the first project, which is to automatically monitor and analyze wetland areas with radar imagery focusing on the use of RADARSAT-2 imagery.
Established in November 2007, CEODE offers a national service for the acquisition, processing, archiving and distribution of airborne and spaceborne remote sensing data. In partnership with other institutions, the center engages in research on the scientific and technical development of geospatial information and Digital Earth.
“We are very pleased to have PCI Geomatics as our strategic partner,” said Prof. Guo Huadong, Director-General, CEODE. “We fully believe that the collaboration between the two organizations will make fruitful future progress.”
“We are delighted with the strategic collaboration between PCI Geomatics and CEODE,” said Dr. Robert Moses, President and CEO, PCI Geomatics. “The joint efforts of both organizations will help to benefit both the environment and the people of China.”
About the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth
The Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE) is an independent non-profit research institute affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It is responsible for the provision of national service for the acquisition, processing, archiving and distribution of airborne and spaceborne remote sensing data. In partnership with other institutions, CEODE also engages in research on the scientific and technical development of geospatial information and Digital Earth.
For more information, visit
About PCI Geomatics
PCI Geomatics is a world leading developer of software and solutions for geospatial imaging applications. For over 25 years we have specialized in remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, spatial analysis, cartographic production, automated production systems, image management and on demand mapping solutions. Our flagship software Geomatica® enables users with the necessary tools to address a wide variety of industry applications including sustainable agriculture, forestry management, wetlands, carbon management, public security, disaster management and more. PCI Geomatics technology turns images into useful information for effective decision making.
For more information, visit www.pcigeomatics.com
Press Contact
Alysia Vetter, Marketing Manager
Tel: 819-770-0022, Ext. 233
Fax: 819-770-0098
Email: vetter@pcigeomatics.com
Web: www.pcigeomatics.com
ERDAS has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Spacebel to participate to the next phase of the Heterogeneous Missions Accessibility (HMA) project, called HMA-Testbed (HMA-T) phase 2.
Initiated in 2005, HMA is part of ESA’s participation in the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) European program. The goal of HMA is to standardize the ground segment interfaces of the satellite missions contributing to GMES for easier access to earth observation (EO) data.
Organizations monitoring environmental changes, accidents or disasters at various levels need access to EO data from multiple providers. Current estimates show that more than 60% of the efforts of the service providers are consumed just for the access to EO data. With HMA, ESA aims to define the interoperability standards for harmonized access to ESA, national, Eumetsat and other third parties satellite missions. HMA will enable across-missions standardized data access, including collection and service discovery, catalog search and data programming and order.
ERDAS has been an active contributor of the HMA project since its beginning. In 2005, HMA began its first stage, defining interoperability standards, with ERDAS focusing on cataloguing requirements, leading to extensions of the CS-W standard of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). In 2007, HMA initiated validating the proposed standard specifications into real implementations. In 2008, HMA launched its testbed stage, continuing specification improvements and supporting the operational implementations already begun at ESA and partners, with the conformance testing and prototyping of the newly defined standards.
The appointed participants in HMA-T phase 2 recently met to launch the project on 4 July 2008, at ESA premises in Frascati, Italy. Under the coordination of Spacebel, HMA-T phase 2 brings together selected European actors of the earth observation domain, including Spot Image, IGN France, Deimos, VITO, GIM and Infoterra UK.
“ERDAS is a leader in geospatial interoperability based on open standards. Supporting this vision compels ERDAS to maintain the edge by making important research investments,” said Brad Skelton, Chief Technology Officer, ERDAS. “Open standards-based interoperability requires the involvement and commitment of a community. That’s why ERDAS, besides its internal R&D, is strongly involved in the OGC and also in projects like HMA. With HMA, ERDAS takes one more step towards its objective: helping organizations harness the information of the changing earth.”
“A European initiative, HMA is watched with great attention in other regions of the world. The problem tackled by ESA is indeed universal,” said Christopher Tucker, Senior Vice President Americas and National Programs, ERDAS. “For many years, ERDAS has actively promoted the principles that are the foundation of HMA: open standards, interoperability, data accessibility and global discovery. Customers all over the world will benefit from the technological advances gained by ERDAS through HMA.”
For more information about ERDAS or its products and services, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 GO ERDAS, or visit www.erdas.com.
About ERDAS
ERDAS creates geospatial business systems that transform our earth’s data into business information, enabling individuals, businesses and public agencies to quickly access, manage, process, and share that information from anywhere.
Using secure geospatial information, ERDAS solutions improve employee, customer and partner visibility to information, enabling them to respond faster and collaborate better. It also means better decision-making, increased productivity and new revenue streams.
ERDAS is a part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden. For more information about ERDAS or its products and services,
please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit www.erdas.com .
Media Contact: Jason Sims, ERDAS, Inc. – Marketing Communications Specialist
5051 Peachtree Corners Circle, Suite 100, Norcross, GA 30092
Phone: +1 770 776 3400 or +1 866 534 2286
E-mail: Jason.Sims@erdas.com
The MFB-GeoConsulting Team is proud to present our new website based on innovative database driven web-technologies to our audiance.
Have a look, download support or product infos, see the new image galleries associated to our news reports, recommend our site to a friend, or give us some feedback: we are happy to welcome you as a visitor onboard !
Your MFB GeoConsulting Team
Source MFB
ESA and EADS Astrium have been signed the contract for GMES Sentinel-2 satellite.
The European Space Agency and Astrium were signed 17.4.2008 a €195 million contract to provide the first Sentinel-2 earth observation satellite, devoted to monitoring the land environment, as part of the European GMES programme. As prime contractor, Astrium is responsible for the design, development and integration of the satellite, which will perform a high-end multi-spectral optical imaging mission.
The contract was signed in Friedrichshafen by Volker Liebig, ESA Director of Earth Observation, Evert Dudok, President of Astrium Satellites, and Uwe Minne, Director of Earth Observation & Science for Astrium, in the presence of the European Commission and Ulrich Kasparick, German Parliamentary State Secretary at the Transport, Building & Urban Affairs Ministry.
Underlining the value of this mission for Europe, Volker Liebig commented: “This satellite is an important element of GMES and will enable Europe to continuously observe changes in the environment”.
Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) aims to deliver environment and security services and is being led by the European Commission. It is the European response to the ever-increasing demands of effective environmental policies. At the same time, it is the European contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
ESA is responsible for implementation of the GMES Space Component, a set of earth observation missions involving ESA, EU/ESA Member States and other partners. Central elements of the Space Component are the five families of Sentinel missions.
Sentinel-2 will deliver crucial data for information services to the EU and its Member States under GMES. The services fed by it cover areas such as climate change, sustainable development, environmental policies, European civil protection, common agricultural policy, development aid, humanitarian aid and the Common Foreign & Security Policy.
Sentinel-2 will support the operational generation of products such as the mapping of land cover, land use, change detection and geophysical variables. The mission objective is systematic coverage of the earth’s land surface (from -56° to +83° latitude) to produce cloud-free imagery typically every 15 to 30 days over Europe.
Sentinel-2 features a 290 km-wide coverage, 10-20 m spatial resolution, 13 optical channel instrument (operating from visible-near infrared to shortwave infrared) and will ensure enhanced-quality continuity with existing missions Spot and Landsat. It will provide improved revisit time, swath width, coverage area, spectral bands, calibration and image quality. These features will enable it to contribute effectively to GMES needs for operational land and emergency services.
ESA carried out the Sentinel-2 definition phase over 2005/2006. The implementation phase started in October 2007. The launch of the first Sentinel-2 satellite is planned for 2012.
Source ESA
CARTOSAT-2A and nine other satellites successfully launched.
In its thirteenth flight conducted from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, today (April 28, 2008), ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C9, successfully launched the 690 kg Indian remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2A, the 83 kg Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1) and eight nanosatellites for international customers into a 637 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO). PSLV-C9 in its ‘core alone’ configuration launched ten satellites with a total weight of about 820 kg.
After the final count down, PSLV-C9 lifted off from the second launch pad at SDSC SHAR, at 09:24 Hrs IST with the ignition of the core first stage. The important flight events included the separation of the first stage, ignition of the second stage, separation of the heatshield at about 125 km altitude after the vehicle had cleared the dense atmosphere, second stage separation, third stage ignition, third stage separation, fourth stage ignition and fourth stage cut-off.
The 690 kg main payload, CARTOSAT-2A, was the first satellite to be injected into orbit at 885 seconds after lift-off at an altitude of 637 km. About 45 seconds later, Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1) was separated after which all the nano satellites were separated in sequence. The initial signals indicate normal health of the satellites.
CARTOSAT-2A
CARTOSAT-2A is a state-of-the art remote sensing satellite with a spatial resolution of about one metre and swath of 9.6 km. The satellite carries a panchromatic camera (PAN) capable of taking black-and-white pictures in the visible region of electromagnetic spectrum. The highly agile CARTOSAT-2A is steerable along as well as across the direction of its movement to facilitate imaging of any area more frequently.
Soon after separation from PSLV fourth stage, the two solar panels of CARTOSAT-2A were automatically deployed. The satellite’s health is continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at Bangalore with the help of ISTRAC network of stations at Bangalore, Lucknow, Mauritius, Bearslake in Russia, Biak in Indonesia and Svalbard in Norway.
High-resolution data from CARTOSAT-2A will be invaluable in urban and rural development applications calling for large scale mapping.
Indian Mini Satellite (IMS -1)
Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1), flown as an auxiliary payload on board PSLV-C9, is developed by ISRO for remote sensing applications. Weighing 83 Kg at lift-off, IMS-1 incorporates many new technologies and has miniaturised subsystems. IMS-1 carries two remote sensing payloads – A Multi-spectral camera (Mx Payload) and a Hyper-spectral camera (HySI Payload), operating in the visible and near infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The spatial resolution of Mx camera is 37 metre with a swath of 151 km while that of HySI is about 506 metre with a swath of about 130 km. The data from this mission will be made available to interested space agencies and student community from developing countries to provide necessary impetus to capacity building in using satellite data. The versatile IMS-1 has been specifically developed to carry different payloads in future without significant changes in it and has a design life time of two years.
Nano Satellites for International Customers
Eight Nanosatellites from abroad are carried as auxiliary payloads besides IMS-1 as well as CARTOSAT-2A. The total weight of these Nanosatellite payloads is about 50 Kg. Six of the eight Nanosatellites are clustered together with the collective name NLS-4. The other two nanosatellites are NLS-5 AND RUBIN-8. NLS-4, developed by University of Toronto, Canada consists of six nano-satellites developed by various universities. Two of them – CUTE 1.7 and SEEDS – are built in Japan, while the other four – CAN-X2, AAUSAT-II, COMPASS-1 and DELPHI-C3 are built in Canada, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands respectively. NLS-5 is also built by University of Toronto and RUBIN-8 is built by Cosmos International, Germany. The eight nanosatellite payloads of PSLV-C9 are built to develop nano technologies for use in satellites as well as for the development of technologies for satellite applications.
In its twelve consecutively successful flights so far, PSLV has repeatedly proved itself as a reliable and versatile workhorse launch vehicle. It has demonstrated multiple satellite launch capability having launched a total of sixteen satellites for international customers besides thirteen Indian payloads which are for remote sensing, amateur radio communications and Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1). PSLV was used to launch ISRO’s exclusive meteorological satellite, KALPANA-1, into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) in September 2002 and thus proved its versatility. The same vehicle will be used to launch Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, India’s first mission to Moon during this year.
Source ISRO