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Third 02B satellite successfully launched by China

China launched the third Earth resources satellite co-developed with Brazil on 19 Sept. 2007 and the two nations will jointly develop two more satellites. The satellite, named 02B, was launched on a Chinese Long March-4B carrier rocket which blasted off at 11:26 a.m. (Beijing Time) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China ‘s Shanxi Province . The satellite separated from the rocket 12 minutes after lift-off, entering its preset sun-synchronous orbit, at a perigee of 738 kilometers and an apogee of 750 kilometers. The satellite can collect information through high definition cameras.

Source: SpaceDaily

GeoVille Environmental Services sàrl signed a contract with the European Environment Agency for implementing CORINE Land Cover (CLC) 2006 in the West Balkan countries.

GeoVille, together with two partners of the European Topic Centre on Land Use Information, will be responsible for training and capacity building in the region. Further tasks are related to verification and acceptance of the CLC2006 update for Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
The interpretation of land cover changes in Albania will be carried out by GeoVille Information Systems Gmbh in collaboration with local experts.

GeoVille sàrl has already finished the update of Corine Land Cover for 2006 in Luxembourg. The project encompassed the detection, identification and mapping of all land cover changes above 5 ha between 2000 and 2006. Main changes are related to the regrowth of 2200 ha forested areas after the 1999 winter storm (Lothar) and conversion of about 700 ha to artificial surfaces.

About Geoville

GeoVille is an internationally operating company providing consultancy, services and products related to remote sensing, geo-information and geographic information systems. GeoVille provides value-added services in the land domain with focus on urban, regional and spatial planning applications, environmental surveillance, forestry as well as biodiversity.

Since its establishment in 1998 GeoVille has established a broad international customer base and successfully participated in more than 250 national and international projects located in 45 countries around the world. Registered offices are in Innsbruck, Austria and Mertert, Luxembourg.

GeoVille is certified as a CO2 neutral company.
For more details: www.geoville.com

Deimos-1, next spacecraft to be launched in the DMC has passed its Module Readiness Review, all subsystems ready and tested individually and ready for integration.

With the completion of the imager during the next month, the satellite will start final integration soon. Construction of the Ground Control Centre for Deimos-1 has started in Boecillo, Valladolid, Spain.

Deimos-1 was already featured in previous issues of this magazine. Together with the UK-DMC2, they are the first pair of the second-generation DMC spacecraft built by SSTL, to be launched together next year.

A thorough testing program has just finished at the subsystem level with Deimos-1. Despite of its small size, the spacecraft contains state-of-the-art systems in all areas and will integrate a newly developed imaging system. SSTL’s experience has allowed to provide enhancements in critical components without losing the reliability that has been the characteristic feature of past DMC satellites. Deimos-1, with a total of 12GB solid state on-board storage and a downlink capacity of up to 40 MBPS, is a very respectable addition to the fleet of Earth Observation assets currently in space.

Testing of all subsystems has proceeded at record speed due to the reuse of some components and the evolutionary choice taken for new developments. Additionally, a large part of the integrated tests has already taken place in a “soft stack” configuration, in which modules are fully assembled electrically but are left unfastened mechanically.

The pictures depict the Deimos-1 review team in the integration hall with the satellite, complete except for imager and solar arrays. Pictures of some components are also shown.

The imager, a complete new development with better optical characteristics and smaller pixel size than the original SLIM6, is in advanced phases of EM testing and is scheduled to start FM manufacture in the next month.

Additionally, construction work for the base of the 5,5m antenna at the Ground Control Centre has started and is expected to finish during the first half of October.

Profile

Deimos Imaging SL is an Earth Observation company, with entirely private investors, and its goal is the operation of a complete system including spacecraft, ground station and delivery of finished products and services. Currently it offers a number of very stable products that stem from the research at the Remote Sensing Lab at the University of Valladolid, using scientific as well as commercial satellite data (including current DMC) and is in active preparation of the processing capability to use the data of the new Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2.

Contact

Pedro Duque, Managing Director (info@deimos-imaging.com)

Credits

DMC, SSTL and Deimos Imaging SL.

The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki recently published studies revealing that over 5000 hectares of fir and pine forest in the Mount Parnitha National Park were destroyed by the recent forest fires.

Nearly half of the forested area surrounding the city of Athens, which was essential in coping with the pollution emitted by the capitals 2.5 million cars, is ruined. Detailed information about the burnt forest area was extracted with the Definiens Enterprise Image Intelligence™ Suite. The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki used the Definiens technology to analyze high resolution Ikonos satellite data in combination with a digital elevation model, resulting in very accurate and comprehensive maps about the area. The extent of the environmental damage causes scientists to warn of dire changes to the air quality and temperature of the city.

Forest fires are a major concern, both for environmental and safety reasons, therefore city authorities and government bodies must have complete and accurate information about these fires available quickly. The information is required to better understand the changes in the vegetation, the erosion and to determine the impact on wildlife as well as the duration of regeneration. A detailed report helps officials to gain a deeper understanding of the situation and to make the right decisions based on the best insights available. The information may also be used for subsequent forest renewal projects and subsidy management.

“As dramatic and unfortunate it is, but natural disasters regrettably do happen. Therefore it is of utmost importance that officials have knowledge and insights to respond quickly in order to cope with the destruction,” commented Rene Hermes, Definiens’ Vice President of Marketing. “We are pleased to see the value of the Definiens technology in the management of natural resources and public safety.”

In addition to the surface area of burnt forest, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki generated valuable additional information. Using the Definiens Enterprise Image Intelligence Suite, they automatically assessed the distribution of islands of remaining forest within the large area. “We required detailed and accurate results and insights of the Mount Parnitha forest area in a timely manner. The Definiens technology was critical in analyzing and evaluating the damage,” said Ioannis Gitas, Lecturer at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Result images courtesy of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Ikonos satellite data provided by Geoinformation S.A.

Definiens in Earth Sciences

Definiens enables organizations involved in Earth Sciences to quickly extract accurate geo-information, ready for use in GIS, from earth observation and remote sensing imagery. Definiens’ intelligent feature extraction capabilities accelerate mapping, change detection as well as object recognition and deliver standardized, reproducible image analysis results.

About Definiens

Definiens is the number one Enterprise Image Intelligence company for analyzing and interpreting images on every scale, from microscopic cell structures to satellite images. The Definiens Cognition Network Technology®, developed by Nobel laureate Prof. Gerd Binnig and his team, is an advanced and robust context-based technology designed to fulfill the image analysis requirements of the Life and Earth sciences markets. The technology is modeled on the powerful human cognitive perception processes to extract intelligence from images. Definiens provides organizations with faster image analysis results, allowing deeper insights enabling better business decisions. The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany and has offices throughout the United States. Further information is available at www.definiens.com.

Definiens, Definiens Cellenger, Definiens Cognition Network Technology, Definiens eCognition, Enterprise Image Intelligence and Understanding Images are trademarks or registered trademarks of Definiens. All other names are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Press contacts

Definiens
Rene Hermes, Vice President Marketing
Email
+49 (0)89 231180-11

Lucy Turpin Communications
Nina Wenske, PR & MarCom Manager
Email
+49 (0)89 417761-13

Critical Software and Instituto de Telecomunicações will develop an innovative technology that allows the detection and classification of vessels based on a new generation of high resolution satellite images.

The aim of this initiative is to control the European external border effectively and according to the activities lead by the European Agency FRONTEX. In Portugal, the control of the Atlantic border is crucial to assure the management and safety of the vessel traffic and the detection of illegal activities. This public/private partnership is financed by Agência da Inovação, which aims to enforce the existing collaboration between the institutions and the Portuguese manufacturing on the strategic domain of the remote detection with satellite images.

Radar sensors on board of satellites can be used to give an independent source of information by any weather condition, during the day and night. Ocean monitoring services based satellite data are already in place but current technology can only perform a rough detection providing uncertain information on size and type of the vessels.

In this project, images acquired by the new TerraSAR-X satellite will be used. TerraSAR-X bears a powerful SAR sensor with unprecedented high spatial resolution. A space based ocean monitoring system will improve safety and security at sea, supporting authorities in case of storms, search and rescue operations, fishery control, and coastal patrol activities.
Among other things, this technology will allow:

  • The detection of floating objects with only a few meters dimension.
  • To classify vessels and provide valuable information concerning the type, speed and activity of the vessel.

The development of this technology will make Critical Software become a reference partner on the development of informatic systems for the safety domain.

Diamantino Costa, Critical Software’s Vice-President states that “The monitoring and surveillance systems are a long-term strategic intake of the company and there are already concrete opportunities of projects in this specific field in Portugal”.

FRONTEX Agency aims to reinforce the border security, assuring the coordination of the Member States’ activities on the application of community measures concerning the management of external borders.

About Critical Software SA

Created in 1998, a Critical Software (www.criticalsoftware.com) is an international systems and software company with headquarters in Coimbra with offices in Lisbon and Oporto (Portugal), San Jose (US) and Southampton (UK). Critical Software supports critical business or mission informatic systems on several markets, including Aeronautics, Defence, Finance Services, Government, Manufacturing, Space and Telecommunications. The company is currently implementing a quality management certificate system – CMMI Level 3, ISO 9001:2000 Tick-IT, ISO 15504, AQAP 2120 and EN9100.

About the Insituto das Telecomunicações

Instituto de Telecomunicações – Telecom Institute (IT) – is a private, non-profit and of public utility institution (associated laboratory) that aggregates five institutions which are experienced in investigation and development on the telecom domain: Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) (Technical Superior Intitute); Universidade de Aveiro (UA) (Aveiro University); Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra (FCTUC) (Science and Technology University of Coimbra); Portugal Telecom Inovação (PTIn), (Portugal Telecom Innovation) and Siemens Network SA.

About the TerraSAR-X project

The TerraSAR-X project (http://www.terrasar.de/ ) consists on the development of the radar satellite TerraSAR-X and on the scientific and commercial use of the images and information that it generates. It is the first German satellite built within a public/private partnership between DLR (German Aerospace Agency) and EADS Astrium. The satellite was launched on the past 15th June and the first images were received a week later.

For more information:

Critical Software SA
marcom@criticalsoftware.com
Tel. +351 239 989 100
Fax: +351 239 989 119

Aerodata added a new page to its corporate website: the Map of the Day and samples page.

This section showcases both the high quality of Aerodata high resolution digital aerial photography datasets as well as the new online viewer based on flash technology.

Have a look at http://www.aerodata-surveys.com/showcase.php

For commercial inquiries, please contact us at info@aerodata-surveys.com

In this issue of EOMAG, EARSC will have the opportunity to feature an interview with Mr. Gerard Brachet.

First of all, thank you very much for taking some time from your busy agenda and giving us the occasion to talk about some aspects relevant for the Earth Observation sector.

A/ About your experience

View on the evolution of satellite-based Earth Observation from the 70s to today.

Satellite-based Earth observation has evolved tremendously from the 70s in the various fields of meteorology, ocean sciences, ice, land and vegetation monitoring, geodetic applications and survey of the gravity and magnetic fields, etc.
Operational satellites dedicated to meteorological observations are much more capable, as testified for example by the data collection capability of the MSG and EPS/Metop series in Europe. As an illustration, a quick look at the IASI data from Metop-1 shows that the impact on numerical weather forecasting should be significant.
Also, experimental satellites such as TRMM have demonstrated their capability to monitor and measure precipitations in the tropical areas, opening the way to operational monitoring of the water cycle between the atmosphere, the oceans and the land masses.
In ocean sciences, the Topex-Poseidon – Jason series of ocean topography satellites have far exceeded their performance targets and provide an invaluable flow of continuous data since 1992, contributing major observation sets to the monitoring of not only global ocean circulation but also the global warming affecting our planet.
Experimental spacecraft such as the European Envisat, the NASA Aqua, … , are delivering high quality data in atmospheric chemistry and ocean surface colour. It is too bad that an operational series of more compact and lower cost satellites are not taking over their excellent data collection capability!
In land monitoring, the Spot series of spacecraft continues, after more than 20 years, to provide excellent high resolution imagery on an operational basis and the continuous growth of Spot Image’s turnover is a good indicator that the market is indeed there. I expect that our friends from India have the same experience with the use of optical imagery from their IRS series. C-Band radar imagery from Radarsat-1 is also provided on an operational basis, and there are hopes that Radarsat-2 will finally get to orbit later this year. In addition, very high resolution optical imagers have been introduced with a very strong support from the US government, opening the way for a new range of GIS applications. Similarly, the recent launches of the first of the Cosmo-Skymed and TerraSar-X satellites, delivering high resolution X-band radar imagery, should boost the applications based on radar imagery, which are still today far behind those of optical imagery.
The area of geodesy has also much benefited from advances in satellite-based navigation technologies such as GPS, for examples for tectonic motions monitoring, and recent successes such as the GRACE twin satellites system, to be followed by the forthcoming ESA GOCE spacecraft, have produced terrific advances in Earth gravity field determination, including its temporal variations at regional and local levels, an indicator of shifting water bodies within the land masses.
Another phenomenon to note is of course the capabilities offered by small to very small observation spacecraft, thanks to major progresses made in many areas of satellite technology, which have opened the way for lower cost space-based Earth observation systems, thus making them accessible to less developed (and less rich) countries. The continuous interest for such satellite systems shown by many new entrants such as Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Korea, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Thailand, Taiwan, etc. (and this list is increasing every month!) is a good indicator that Earth Observation from space is still in a growing phase. Indeed, my own prediction is that it will continue to grow for a very long time, if only because of the very wide spectrum of applications areas.

Is European observation on the right track?

Europe has historically played a very significant role in the development of Earth Observation systems and applications, but this role is not as visible as it should be. The introduction of the GMES initiative in the late 90s following the “Baveno declaration” in 1998, was meant to create a more formal and politically visible framework for the European efforts in this area. Unfortunately, the European Commission was rather slow in taking it up and in developing a concrete plan for its implementation. In addition, the EC did not understand that the role of the EU is to facilitate space policy making at European level, not to compete with ESA. To be fair, ESA was also a bit worried at any initiative coming from Brussels. This has led to a very slow build up of the GMES programme, which however seems now to be on track via a services approach.
But I feel that there is a continuous ambiguity about what the EU is expecting from ESA. ESA, on its part, continues to ignore national and industry initiatives and focuses only on its own Sentinel projects, which I believe is a major mistake. It seems that ESA has not learned any lessons from the history of Earth Observation in Europe, where it never managed to play a really leadership role, comparable for example to the very successful ESA space sciences programme. The setting up of the Living Planet programme about ten years ago was supposed to remedy this situation but its level of funding is too low, is has suffered from the failure of the launch of its first Explorer satellite (Cryosat) and its future is not entirely clear.
I believe that, outside meteorological observations which are very well taken care of by EUMETSAT, the Jason follow-ons, TerraSAR-X, Cosmo-Skymed, Pleiades and AstroTerra programmes, all of them initiated and managed outside the ESA framework, will provide the backbone of operational European capabilities in Earth Observation during the next decade or so.

Cooperation in space policy actions with third parties, cooperative efforts between agencies and industry

First of all, who are the third parties? If you refer to international partners such as NASA NOAA, JAXA, ISRO, etc., they are already well involved in various cooperative schemes with European Partners. I have seen the excellent CNES/NASA cooperation around Topex-Poseidon and Jason develop since the mid 80s and have drawn an interesting conclusion from this success: a successful cooperation between such agencies requires a good mix between a balanced and clear cooperation agreement for the proper management of the project and a highly competitive environment between the scientific teams who analyse the data, with good, real-time feedback from the scientific teams to the project teams. This, of course, is happening all the time in space science projects, but is not frequent enough in Earth observation programmes, maybe because they tend to hesitate between the constraints of an operational system and a more science driven management style.
Concerning the cooperative efforts between agencies and industry, I will say the following: first the primary role of agencies is to fund basic Research and Technology so that industry masters the tools to be competitive. But supporting R & T is not enough if it is not applied in concrete space projects. These can be 100% funded by government agencies as with traditional ESA projects, or be funded in partnership between agencies and industry if there is a sufficient estimated market potential, as in the TerraSAR-X arrangement between DLR and Astrium, or by other arrangements such as the one I experimented with the setting up of SPOT Image in the early 80s, whereby the agency bears the cost of the satellites and launches and the commercial operator concentrates on market development and covers operating costs initially, until the market has sufficiently developed for it to start supporting the space segment.
These various economic models have their advantages and their drawbacks but what need to be said is that Earth Observation from space is in a very awkward situation: one finds all kinds of economic models, from scientific research and meteorological observations which are considered public goods, leading to data being exchanged freely without charge, to high resolution imagery which is considered a commercial commodity, and yet remains under tight government control because of international foreign policy and security issues. In between, of course, you find a mix of both situations. That does not make it easy to define a clear and stable policy for data access, and yet such clear and stable policy is absolutely essential for industry to be able to invest in satellite-based Earth observation systems.

B/ Role of EO at COPUOS

Role of COPUOS in space policy

COPUOS is a Committee of the UN General Assembly established in 1959. It has currently 67 member states and more than 40 permanent observers, many of them international non government organizations. COPUOS developed the international legal framework for space activities from the very important founding text, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to other international treaties dealing with state responsibility to recommendations and/or guidelines which have been developed over the years. For example, the most recent text is the Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines adopted earlier this year, very important to safeguard the space environment in near Earth orbits such as the heliosynchronous orbits where many EO satellites operate. More specifically, In the field of Earth Observation, the main text prepared by COPUOS was the UNGA Resolution number 41/65 of December 1986, mostly known under the title of the Principles on Remote Sensing. I was very much involved in its elaboration in the early 80s and believe that it still remains today a very adequate set of principles, although some countries such as Brazil are actively promoting a revision of this text.

The Space Applications Programme implemented by the UN OOSA

The COPUOS reviews and approves every year the Space Application Program of the United Nations, managed by the Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA), which is mostly aimed at capacity building in the developing countries.
A large part of the SAP is linked to EO applications to the needs of developing countries in areas such as land management, water resources, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, etc. Recently, a new UN program was approved, called SPIDER (United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response), which aims at facilitating space applications to support disaster management. The implementation of this new program is just starting in 2007 and more information can be found on the UN OOSA site at HYPERLINK “http://www.unooosa.org” www.unooosa.org.

Involvement in GMES and GEOSS

COPUOS is not directly involved in GMES, which is a purely European initiative and programme, nor in GEOSS which an international program supported by the “Group on Earth Observation” (GEO), established outside the UN framework.
However, because the states members of COPUOS are concerned that Space Technology must be exploited fully to support understanding and monitoring of climate and other global changes affecting our planet, I have actively pushed setting up a mechanism to facilitate exchange of information and views from the UN COPUOS to the GEO and back. This is easier said than done as the delegations to the two bodies are coming from different ministries within each country and the internal coordination is not always very good…
Also, many international organizations belonging to the UN system are members of GEO and are very actively involved in the GEOSS process, such as the World Meteorological Organisation, the International Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Program. The UN OOSA is also a member of GEO.

C/ Links with Earth Observation

Future steps for GMES in Europe and under GEOSS

(Note: Brachet´s views here are not linked to the COPUOS discussions since COPUOS is not involved at all in GMES).

As stated in section A, I believe that GMES, after a rather slow start, is now on the right track and that the services approach taken by the EC is the right one. I am hopeful that the budgetary aspects of GMES in the EU will find a stable solution as it is clear that the GMES services cannot take off only on the basis of Research (FP7) funds, with 50% funding from Industry. After all, DG Tren had found a solution for a sustainable funding for the Galileo concession during the initial 2007-2013 period, I don’t see why DG Enterprise, maybe with the help of DG Agri., DG Env., DG Development and other DGs involved, could not convince the Council to do the same for the GMES services.
Also, Europe is in the forefront of international negotiations on global warming and biodiversity issues. GMES could become one of its principal tools for monitoring compliance with future treaties and conventions relating to environment protection and sustainable development. Therefore, the political visibility of GMES should be much higher than it is presently.
Do not forget also that GMES has an “S” at the end, which is supposed to mean that security issues are to be addressed by this programme. It is rather delicate in the European context because of institutional reluctance from Member States to see the EC dwelling in security matters, but I have observed that the situation is slowly evolving in a positive fashion.

GMES is also one of the main European contributions to GEOSS, together with large environment related research projects managed from DG Research and environment standards defined and monitored from DG Environment and the European Environment Agency (EEA). It would be good if the European Commission could set up an internal Steering Committee on GEOSS to facilitate coordination and consistency between all these entities. This would increase the European influence on GEOSS planning and implementation.

Lessons learnt from EO in the past years

In the past years, we have learnt that EO is an indispensable tool because it alone provides the global, near permanent view, on what is going on in our planet, but we have also learnt that EO from space cannot do everything, that some parameters are not accessible by remote measurements. As a consequence, a combination of “in situ” measurements and remotely collected observations is often essential to produce the right data sets that are needed to understand the physics and chemistry of the environment processes. Our friends from the Met offices and from Eumetsat know this very well, but I sometimes wonder if some space agencies have fully understood it.
Of course, we have learnt many other lessons, for example the need for EO experts to forget their technical “jargon” when they speak to the users in various application areas. I remember what I used to tell my sales staff at Spot Image in the 80s: “Forget about the satellite, forget about remote sensing, what our customers need is geo-referenced information of direct relevance to their process, provided in a format they can easily understand. We will have successfully developed the market when you will no longer need to mention where the data is coming from.”
This is where the successful EO service companies play a major role: they know their customers and their requirements and act as brokers between the raw data providers (space operators as well as in situ observation networks) and the end users.

Planning and budgeting process of EO programmes

I am not sure I want to comment on planning and budgeting of EO programmes in Europe.
I will only say that ESA has to realize that it is not alone in Europe. It would be better off if it recognized the efforts made by many of its member states and by European industry to develop and operate EO space systems. It could play more of a coordinating role instead of focusing only on its own projects, but I guess that it is too late to hope that ESA changes its behaviour.
Obviously, industry is now able to come up with its own solutions for the deployment of EO systems and will do so more frequently.

A success that has influenced the budget lines in the space industry?

I am not sure I get your question right. I will assume you mean a success that has influenced the revenue lines.
In my view, a major success has been the application of satellite imagery to agriculture in the EU, thanks in large part to the efforts of the European Commission (DG Agri and the JRC) and of service companies in the 1980s and 1990s. Both agriculture statistics at the European level and monitoring of the application of the CAP within each member states have benefited immensely from this technology. The total revenues generated by this application may not be extremely high, but they are significant. I believe the Farmstar programme initiated by Astrium is a good indicator of its present size and growth potential.
The other major success in Europe is the series of operational meteorological satellites managed by Eumetsat with technical assistance from ESA. It is so far the only case in the civilian world where the user community in Europe has gotten organized to fund the continuity of the operational observation satellites that it requires. It took place in the eighties and is a complete success. I believe this is an interesting lesson.

D/ Dialogue with the EO industry: cooperation and partnership

Here again, here I am not speaking as chairman of COPUOS but more as an observer of the EO industry over the last thirty years.

Private companies initiatives

As I said earlier, European industry is today capable of coming up with its own solutions for EO systems, although it is still a bit shy when taking the investment risk. Governments and the EC should take measures to encourage this evolution, for example by acting as a preferred customer, in a similar fashion to what the UK MoD did for the Skynet satellite telecom system.
It is true that the disaster that has become the Galileo concession process does not help. It could have been avoided if the EC had understood fully the challenges of the Galileo programme. As long as the bureaucrats, whether in the EC or in national governments, do not understand the specific risks associated with space ventures and want to treat them as ordinary infrastructure projects, the private space enterprises will have a hard time taking off.

Government agencies supporting private development

Government agencies should encourage private initiatives in deploying EO systems.
They can do it in many ways:
-Firstly, by supporting industry in basic Research & Technology and funding the development of very advanced experimental EO systems (satellites and payloads),
-Secondly, by encouraging public-private partnerships when the market potential is sufficiently established,
-Thirdly, by making sure that the legal and financial landscape is favourable: in many cases, issues such as government oversight (e.g. “shutter control”, etc.) and third party liabilities of the operator are too murky for the financial circles to give the green light. I believe that ESA , the EC and national space agencies must pay more attention to this problem.

Interaction with EO value-added industry

First of all, I do not like the expression “value-added industry”. Let us speak instead of the EO service industry. The service companies produce the information required by their customers, whether central or local governments, large or small private companies, whether on their domestic markets or on the export market. Very often, EO data are a small fraction of the data sets that they process. Their role is essential because they know (or are supposed to know) which EO data are needed, where to find these data, how to control their quality, and how to combine them with other data to feed the models that they use to produce the end-user information. In the GMES programme, where the services approach is adopted, the services are divided in “core services” which produce the core information in an operational mode and “downstream services”, which are closer to customer requirements. In both cases, the EO service industry in Europe has a beautiful opportunity to develop its business and expand its services outside the European market. Its ability to provide competitive services for GMES will be key to the success of the GMES programme.

E/ Future and Society

Future of EO within environment policies

Earth Observation should become more of an integral part of environment policies, at the global level, at the European and at the national level. It is not yet the case, as Earth Observation is often perceived by environment policymakers as a “technology looking for a customer”. In fact, even the teams working within the GEO need to be reminded that the overall objective of such grand schemes as GEOSS is to improve our collective environment policy-making ability, based on objective observations and on a proper understanding of what is affecting the planet and its resources. A lot more work is needed to convince decision makers that EO is an indispensable prerequisite for an intelligent policy making in environment matters.

Objectives for COPUOS in the next 10 years

I presented during the June 2007 session of COPUOS a series of proposals concerning the future role and activities of COPUOS.
Following the work done successfully the last few years to establish guidelines for Space Debris Mitigation, I believe the effort should go now towards developing some kind of “rules of the road” to maintain outer space, particularly near Earth outer space, a safe place top operate in. This is a sensitive subject because it implies that states would be ready to accept certain rules of behaviour in space even for space-based military activities.
There are many other priorities for COPUOS, such as helping GEOSS to be implemented, coordinating the various Global Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS), assisting developing countries to take full advantage of space technology, encouraging the development within each nation of a clear and stable legal and regulatory framework for space activities, etc.

Future of Europe’s autonomy in space

Europe has full autonomy in space, thanks to its excellent industrial base and its autonomous launching capability, including its launch base infrastructure in French Guiana. The only exception to this autonomy is the area of manned space flights, where Europe is dependent on US and Russian launchers (and experience).
I do not believe Europe is ready to invest the large amounts of public money needed to become fully autonomous in manned space flights, simply because manned flights do not have any relevance to military, scientific or economic applications. The development of a European autonomous capability to fly humans in space could be justified only on political grounds, and that would require a degree of political consensus across Europe that is not foreseeable today.
Otherwise, European autonomous space capability will remain in good shape as long as governments continue to invest in R & T and in ambitious space projects, thus maintaining European industry at the world level. I believe this will be the case in the foreseeable future.

Lessons learnt from outside Europe

I have stated many times “Europe must be capable of defining its own vision and ambitions in space”. Looking at what China is doing today, at the Indian experience, event at the recent evolution of thinking in Japan, it is clear that a striving space programme takes place only within countries (or group of countries such as the EU) which have the necessary independence to think for themselves, to develop their own vision for space, whether it is for strategic, for economic or for scientific reasons. Europe should study carefully the reasons for the relatively large investments in space programmes by countries like China and by India. I am afraid the collective thinking in Europe is much too cautious and does not recognize the strategic and economic value of space systems. The Galileo decision was the exception, it is too bad its implementation has been so poorly managed.
In conclusion, the famous European Space Policy, still in its infancy, should set much more ambitious objectives than is presently the case. However, let us not be overly pessimistic, things are moving, slowly, in the right direction.

EO development for the citizen

Space technology has applications in the “public good” area as well as in the commercial applications.
Global navigation, meteorological observations, global change and climate research are good examples of public good applications.
Even in the commercial sector, the development of space-based telecommunications, direct to home broadcasting, worldwide mobile telecommunications have a strong impact on the citizen’s daily life and contribute to economic development everywhere, maybe more so in developing countries because they are less costly to deploy and maintain than ground-based telecom infrastructures.
Space-based Earth observation techniques will continue to develop to provide similar benefits to the citizen, be it on a “no exchange of funds” basis or for a fee, because it can provide useful information on a competitive fashion and is unique in its global reach.

Volunteers to help COPUOS?

I have received many calls from persons willing to assist and have had discussions with many space oriented colleagues who were interested in helping COPUOS. Many times, these were students of law or professional lawyers specializing in space law, while I am not a lawyer myself.
I don’t think we need more lawyers, but I believe strongly that we need more people able to explain the benefits of space technology in simple terms, accessible to the layman, and not requiring any technical background. We need good communicators who can help bridge the gap between the space community and the rest of mankind!

CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites)

CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) LLC was created in 1986, its main shareholders being CNES (the French Space Agency, 55%), IFREMER (The French Marine Institute, 15%), and a group of Banks for 30%. In addition to its staff of 215 at the Headquarters in Toulouse and 60 in the subsidiaries and offices worldwide (USA, Peru, Indonesia, Chile, Australia, Korea, Japan, Russia), most of which are doctors and engineers, CLS offers a wide network of agents and distributors on all continents, and serves a total of over 80 countries.

CLS main missions

  • Satellite payload operations
  • Promotion, marketing of products and services derived from satellite-based information
  • Ground segment design, installation and operations dedicated to the study and protection of environment through location, data collection and remote sensing satellite-borne systems.

Satellite systems operated by CLS

  • Argos: environmental geolocation and data collection
  • Doris: accurate orbit of satellites and high resolution ground positioning
  • Topex-Poseïdon, ERS2, Jason, Envisat: altimetry data
    NOAA: temperature
  • Sarsat: Search and Rescue, for the account of the French Maritime Affairs and Civil Aviation Authority within the French area of responsibility

CLS main services

  • Argos: to date, more than 17,000 Argos transmitters are active worldwide. These are deployed to study and protect the environment within the following fields:
    • Oceanography: study of currents
    • Meteorology: recording, transmission and worldwide distribution of in situ meteorological data
    • Hydrology: monitoring of hydrological basins, water resources monitoring
    • Wildlife: tracking of animal migrations, protection of endangered species
    • Marine resources management: turnkey systems for fisheries surveillance dedicated to fisheries administrations
    • Dangerous goods: monitoring of transportation, of industrial and natural risks
  • Doris: calculation of accurate satellite orbits (Spot 2*, *Spot 4, Topex, Jason, Envisat, and soon Spot 5, Helios 2 and Cryosat)
  • Processing and distribution of remote sensing data for the fishing industry, shipping industry or the oceanographic research institutes:
    • Altimetry
    • Sea Surface Temperature
    • Ocean color
    • Meteorology
    • Marine transportation routing
    • Radar: detection of targets at sea, detection of intentional or accidental oil pollutions
    • Operational surveillance of illegal fishing activity
    • Detection and tracking of icebergs and oil slicks

CLS also designs and develops ground segments for national or international space agencies, within the implementation of new satellite systems or the refurbishment of existing systems.

CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites)

8/10 rue Hermès,
31520 Ramonville St Agne, France
tél : 05 61 39 47 00
E-mail info@cls.fr
Website www.cls.fr

Ensuring the continuity of surveillance from open seas to coastal areas.

CLS

Abstract

Since 11/09, threats characteristics evolved: high seas can be viewed as the scene for illegal activities potentially dangerous for homeland security: drug traffic, illegal immigration, weapons traffic, or bases for terrorist attacks. From the policy point of view, Open Ocean is a vast territory relatively lawless and less monitored. Concerned of such weaknesses, international bodies, Europe and Member States started thinking about setting up capacities and policies to support an improved and global security and safety at sea, enhancing surveillance missions for prevention and preparedness against potential threats, enhancing also response at sea, while embracing the environmental dimension of security at sea also.

Going through threats understanding, missions setting up, Space provides clearly core capacities that can support the improvement of maritime security contributing globally to all classical phases of security issues: prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

R&D, Pilot projects in EU already demonstrated and are currently going on to demonstrate the benefit of space coupled and integrated with other “short range” capacities to contribute to maritime security both in the field of Earth Observation, Telecommunications and data collection or localization. Some Member States passed the step already to use it operationally to support i.e. control of illegal fishing or maritime traffic surveillance but there are few.

Big challenges are de facto remaining in front of Research, Industry, Services operators but also Stakeholders in order for Space to be defined as one of the major “instrument” for an improved global maritime security capacity serving lives and goods protection all over the ocean:

  • Development of high performances capacities
  • Integration of space data and other sources of data into a combination of capacities & systems supporting operational user infrastructures and operational procedures
  • Guaranty of continuity of service from space capacities and data availability/integrity
  • Sensibilisation of stakeholders in supporting the setting up of space capacities for maritime security and use at international, regional up to national and local levels.

The purpose of this presentation will be to illustrate operational key requirements addressed by maritime security, answering both to public and private concerns that could be served by space, illustrate the discussion with leading edge solutions currently developed in Europe and elaborate on technological challenges that the space industry should face to answer to the maritime sector of activity.

Introduction

The European economy depends from maritime transport: 90% of the oil & gas of the European consumption reaches Europe by sea. 70% of the European trades go by sea1.

The maritime domain is a key issue for economy: place for international maritime transport, but also for present & future energy supply capacities (offshore, wind farms), for marine resources exploitation2.

Quarter 1, 2006 63 piracy attacks registered at the International Maritime Bureau, in Asia and West Africa.
Nov 2005 Seabourn Spirit, cruiser attacked in Somalia – 312 people dead
Feb 2004 the MV Super ferry attacked near Manila
Feb 2003 Planned attacks interrupted in the Hormuz detroit
End 2002 TECTO Limburg Tanker attacked close to Yemen
June 2002 planned maritime attack in Gibraltar straits stopped
Oct 2000vUSS Cole destroyer attacked by Al Qaeda close to Yemen

Given its 90 000 km long shores and the level of the economic and social activities attached to it, Europe proves particularly vulnerable when it comes to deal with this new hardly visible highly unpredictable threats.

From a security point of view, main requirements from Member States and Europe are simple:

  • To protect their economic interests whatever their location and route thus all over the globe, thus at long range
  • To prevent from potential threats that could reach European coasts by detecting suspect activities and react before the incident could occur
  • To ensure that coastal areas remain environmentally friendly and safe from threats.

Such requirements for maritime security are mainly driven by institutional actors from September, 11and their requirements are pre-eminent to define homeland security initiatives in Europe, calling for known applications such as Illegal immigration control, blue border control, fight against massive attacks, illegal fishing…
From a policy point of view, international conventions have been defined (UNCLOS, SOLAS, International Ship and Port Security code) to regulate maritime activities but mainly for safety purposes. Duties have been put mainly on flag states but it does not prevent EU from flags of convenience being reluctant to apply security measures and largely collaborate.

Remaining weak in this field, some Member States have already signed multi lateral agreements to support enhanced maritime surveillance and joint operations (Bonn agreement, EQUASIS, SUA convention, …) and designed some regional or sectoral tools (SafeSeaNet, CinCarm for customs, SafetyAtSea, …). EC has already started to implement EU agencies with maritime responsibilities (European Maritime Safety Agency, FRONTEX blue borders, TAXUD, Community Fisheries Control Agency…) and is keen to study the interest of cooperating with the defence in a dual mode but for civil security purposes.

At the international level, in IMO (International Maritime Organization), regulation to implement LRIT (Long Range Identification and Tracking) of vessels is under discussion by Member States in order to monitor and control all traffic within 200 up 2000 miles from coasts either by port states, coastal states or flag states.

In Europe, the Maritime Policy Task force has stated in a draft agenda that EU cooperation shall be made more systematic for different strategic purposes:

  • To increase European prevention and responses capacities by integrating stand alone capacities in a meta capacity more powerful
  • To converge towards an integrated management of the maritime logistic chain filled by each EU actor – private, public – but also with main EU neighbours from which EU depends economically or in terms of borders
  • To strengthen the position of Europe in front of other countries or powers in international discussion and best preserve European interests
  • To optimize the cost of development and deployment of capacities that could be shared for several purposes ( maritime safety, environmental maritime security, maritime security such anti terrorism fight or fight against IUU fishing vessels, fight against piracy, environmental security and pollution management, …)
  • To participate to the development of an integrated management of oceans in a holistic way being multi sectoral and multidisciplinary.

Maritime security is also a concern less expressed but nevertheless important in mind of private companies whose business is significantly dependent from the maritime domain such as: fishing industry, energy sector, maritime freight or leisure. Their requirements can be assimilated to those institutional but operated at a modest level and privately to protect exploitation fields (fishing, energy), production, transportation or distribution links in the chain (international transport).

Operational requirements

Requirements from the public sector are for improved capacities for surveillance (detection at longer distance, more in real time, of smaller objects, on board vessels), solutions of fast and coordinated responses involving several naval actors and institutions integrated or distributed facilities that can be networked or aggregated on demand. Main missions are border control, domestic control, EEZ management, Search and Rescue, fight against organized crime and terrorism.

Requirements for the private sector are more oriented on industrial solutions cost effective, easy to deploy within their own production or business facilities and secured internally (infrastructures surveillance, logistic chain monitoring and control, assets tracking including not only vessels but also containers or freight along multimodal chains, vessels tracking and protection).
Whatever the public or private interests, If it can be more easily managed from the shore and within territorial areas under jurisdiction, mainly in coastal areas, such missions can become more difficult to be operated when European interests are located or routing far from European places; main difficulties being:

  • Difficulty in monitoring globally vessel traffic whatever the location and having up to date information, timeliness of the information acquired at far
  • Difficulty in planning operations far from home, based only on European capacities, and in areas under different policies and organizations
  • Problem of responsibility for joint operations in international waters when usually the flag state is responsible elsewhere.
  • Cost of operations too heavy to be sized for a full coverage and fast response and be taken in charge by single countries due to the types, numbers and costs of technologies to be set up (Radars, AIS stations, Space capacities, Information systems and networks, naval forces, air forces, …)

Technological state of the art

Many R&D projects are running at EU level. In short the main characteristics of these projects are:

  • From a mission standpoint, these projects address first protection of coastal and port areas for blue and green border control
  • They are focused on maritime surveillance and control of European waters for European bodies.
  • They address current EC polices EC2002/59 ERIKA II, ERIKA III.
  • They are mainly targeted to technologies used at short range from coast and ready to be integrated at short to medium term.
  • They are most of all institutions oriented.

An exception shall be done for the MARNIS integrated project led by DG TRANSPORT. This project presented as an “orgware” organization and functional project has for ambition to draw the S&T picture in terms of maritime information management for Member States addressing both open seas/coastal areas/ and information on board vessels for safety purposes but also security.

Institutions are also running initiatives and projects at national level and regional: SafetyAtSea (North), Spationav/trafic2000 (France), Med-MEH (I, MT, Tunisia, Libya), SE-VTMIS (I), CINCARM (customs). Their objectives are to evaluate multilateral joint operations either sectorial or regional and increase their capacities (Radars, AIS, …). Such projects are precursor at European level of more enlarged shared capacities for a global maritime security.

Through SOBCAH, MARNIS but also port control, container control related projects (i.e. addressing CSI implementation), crisis management projects, coastal and port areas are first priorities in the design, implementation and integration of technologies serving security. When implementing such solutions, we are pushing further the limits for controlling and anticipating on threats, towards open sea.

Benefits from space – available and valuable now

Space has demonstrated for years to be adequate in remote areas difficult to access, with a specific capacity to address global and large areas of missions (I.e. SARSAT; GPS, INMARSAT, …).

Space, onboard vessels, is present for positioning, communications both for safety, personal or professional purposes, low cost data collection or positioning for protection against piracy … (ISPS code implementation).

If space is of direct use for navigation and communications, it has to be considered also a significant component in the information chain as a raw data basis for information correlation, imagery intelligence and modelling (meteorology, ocean, mission/route planning).

As such for example, Space is valuable to monitor and control the marine environment either for environmental purposes but also for strategic surveillance or tactical aid in case of operations. Earth observation, Space oceanography are main capacities used for vessels detection, but also pollution, ocean state or ocean health measurements.
Such capacities are partly already deployed and efficient within Fishing Monitoring centres, MRCC services, Radar surveillance systems for illegal fishing controls, met-ocean institutes. Their deployment and use mainly driven by safety at sea and military purposes, at a first basis, is today both private and public and has become a necessity due to international law enforcement.
Navigation: GPS is onboard all vessels. Beyond providing European sovereign solutions with Galileo, the next important steps will be to ensure precise and certified positioning to guaranty the protection of vessels all over the globe (for regulation and Search & rescue) but also to prevent institutions from false positioning given by illegal or IUU vessels.
Data collection systems, mainly used for safety at sea, environmental measurements and ISPS code implementation, will have to be maintained to propose low cost and efficient solutions for small amount of data collection with an enlarged coverage.
Earth Observation, much more mature for terrestrial applications, associated with space oceanography should develop to have en “eye” on the ocean. It shall support navies, maritime authorities or intelligence services to detect and control suspect activities at sea and contribute significantly to prevention and preparedness. Improvements paths should be accuracy, real time observation, extended coverage and also promotion for an enlarged use by the public and private sector.

Beyond intrinsic advantages, Space is a solution:

  • Addressing large coverage surveillance and long range
  • With capacity for hotspot monitoring
  • Fully discrete and non intrusive, legally valid over foreign territories
  • Working all weather, all time
  • Nevertheless, it has been and will remain complementary and useful combined with other data into a maritime information capability.

Forthcoming challenges

Technological and operational challenges to solve reside now in providing solutions and operational scenarios to guarantee that threats cannot be prepared or executed where security constraints are relaxed and thus the vulnerability increased, at long range.

By combining space and non space missions, next Maritime security capacities shall be designed to ensure that:
activities along international routes are continuously tracked from port to port to support vessels protections (and specially HAZMAT3 vessels),
surveillance will be able to be operated anywhere, at any time to detect suspect activities (even small) potentially dangerous along routes, and
The maritime environment can be mastered in terms of objects presence, met ocean behaviour to support detection and operations.
The forthcoming challenges for space are threefold:

  • increase performances in terms of technology to meet operational requirements and scenarios : ensure the continuity of information all time, become more real time and reactive in case of unplanned event and emergency, ensure unfalsification and security of the information
  • proceed with standardization to be integrated with non space technologies to demonstrate of its usefulness and necessity become accessible in terms of pricing so that an enlarged institutional market and private market can adopt it and ensure a global security by sharing surveillance and security responsibilities and aggregating it into a global security framework.

If Space can technologically answer in the future to operational concerns (detection of small wood boats, moving targets, eaves dropping, real time vessel detections in dense areas), Space based capacities will not expand without a strong support from international regulations pushing for it the promotion of added value maritime services integrating all sort of technologies into powerful integrated systems for institutions and states but also light, flexible and cost effective applications for all actors concerned by security: developing countries, private sector, and industry.

Acknowledgments

The authors specially thanks the European partners of the MAEVA maritime security consortium for their contribution, but also meteorological, oceanographic and maritime authorities in refining the concept for a global maritime security and the contribution of space into this global picture. FP6, PASR projects coordinators are also granted for their availability and communication on their respective projects to progress commonly and complementarily in the development of this vision.

Autors

CLS
8-10 rue Hermès
31520 Ramonville
France

Notes

1 DG TRANSPORT white paper, 2001, La politique Européenne des transports à l’horizon 2010 : l’heure des choix

2 DG FISH Common Fisheries Policy, 2001

3 HAZMAT – Hazardous Materials – sensitive cargaisons

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