Skip to content

WINDHOEK, July 4 (Xinhua) — Namibia’s University of Science and Technology (NUST) and Airbus will meet on Wednesday with national Space Data Centre stakeholders to explore the benefits of Earth observation solutions and use of collaborative Virtual Space Data Centre for Namibia.

Sub-Sahara Africa, spokesman for Airbus, Linden Birns, on Tuesday said this workshop in Windhoek follows an agreement between NUST and Airbus in Feb. 2017 to collaborate in establishing a Virtual Space Data Centre, to be hosted by the university to assist the country in monitoring and growing key elements of its economy.

“Namibia is a key market for Airbus in Sub-Sahara Africa and this initial project is a starting point for a broader relationship with our partners at the NUST and the Ministry of Higher Education, Training and Innovation, which will include other aerospace themes,” said Head of Airbus Defence and Space for Africa, Middle East, France and UK, Jean-Marc Nasr.

Meanwhile, the Namibian government has delegated NUST to host the country’s Institute for Space Technology and mandated it to implement the Virtual Space Data Centre as part of its strategic plan for developing the country’s aerospace, geo-information, earth observation and spatial science capabilities.

Airbus is a global leader in aerospace technology and geo-information with access to Earth observation satellite imagery and expertise and space data is widely used by governments, research institutes, businesses and various other organizations around the world in a number of fields.

Source

Earth-i is an innovative and forward-thinking distributor of very high resolution satellite imagery. They plan to capture a significant share of the global market for Earth Observation services by launching Europe’s first commercial satellite constellation to offer both video and still images, and the first in the world to provide full colour satellite video.

Headquartered in Surrey Research Park, Earth-i takes an active role in supporting the UK space industry. They actively sponsored this year’s UK space conference and maintain close ties with industry leaders, co-located with companies such as Surrey Satellite Technologies, manufacturers of their new satellites, and the country’s largest academic research centre: The Surrey Space Centre.

Since 2013 Earth-i have been providing very high resolution imagery from three identical, British-built satellites. The DMC3/TripleSat constellation offers daily revisit opportunities to any location on Earth, multispectral imaging and scene capture individually or in strips up to 175 scenes long and a very wide swath width (23km). Across track and along track stereo imaging are also available. These satellites have found uses across industries including agriculture, wide area mapping and disaster response. Their combination of rapid revisit times and very high resolution is unmatched in the industry and Earth-i’s rigorous quality standards are maintained throughout acquisition and processing. Last year, these values were recognised by the State government of Queensland, Australia.

Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) awarded Earth-i the contract to supply very high resolution, optical data of the the entire state. DNRM will be using the data to update their geospatial database. No other satellite operators were able to provide the same resolution of images, with a similar frequency of acquisition at such a competitive rate.


©Earth-i ©21AT All rights reserved

To meet the needs of the DNRM, Earth-i provide a complete end-to-end service that covers acquisition, processing and delivery. Speaking about the contract, Steve Jacoby, Executive Director of Land and Spatial Information, DNRM, said: “We are delighted to have awarded the contract to Earth-i. They demonstrated a clear understanding of our needs in Queensland, the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation provides us and other Queensland government departments with both the wide area capability and the very high resolution imagery required to meet the needs of the user community. We were impressed with the professionalism of the Earth-i bid and the quality of data we will be able to work with to support a wide range of applications.”

At the UK Space Conference held in May Earth-i announced plans to launch and operate Europe’s first commercial constellation to offer both video and imagery. The announcement was greeted with excitement and interest from across the industry.

The launch of its own constellation is a natural evolution of Earth-i’s existing and well-regarded image and Earth Observation analytics business and will enable it to meet the rapidly growing demand for high-resolution Earth Observation data from traditional end-users and the growing sector for big data analytics and insights drawn from such EO data.

Using advanced, proprietary technology mostly developed in the UK and already proven on small satellites designed by the world’s leading small sat experts, Earth-i has commissioned a highly sophisticated small satellite for its constellation. The building of the constellation begins with the 2017 launch of Earth-i’s first prototype satellite (expected later in the year). Named by Earth-i ‘EiX2’, the satellite is being manufactured and launched in partnership with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), part of the Airbus Defence and Space Group and originally spun off from the University of Surrey.

This R&D satellite will be used to test performance and demonstrate capabilities for the future constellation including tasking, data downlinks to ground stations, and image quality and video from space before the launch of commercial satellites planned for 2019. 

During this time Earth-i will also be developing a cutting-edge service that will enable easy acquisition and analysis of imagery, and use advanced algorithms to extract value from the data. The use of video enables more images to be captured which can be stacked to create virtual 3D models.

Richard Blain, CEO of Earth-i, said: “We’re now at the forefront of the commercialisation of space and the rapid evolution of the New Space market. We’re a well-funded, capable and confident business that is following a different route to our US counterparts. We have designed and developed our constellation for organisations that need to strike a different balance between the cost of acquiring data from space, and access to sufficiently high-resolution of quality images and video to enable the detailed analysis that will help to further improve their own performance and capabilities. Owning our own constellation will enable us to completely customise our offering because we’ll have total control over mission planning and tasking, as well as assured access to our own significant global data source. We are also pioneering new value-added services and big data analytics that promise to extract the highest value from space data, as well as working with partner organisations to support in the delivery of global services.”

Josef Aschbacher, Director of Earth Observation at the European Space Agency, said: “There is an almost insatiable demand for data from space as people are realising its true value to both their planning and daily operations. Higher resolution image data from commercial organisations is likely to be very valuable either in its own right or when used in conjunction with other data sources including medium-resolution image data such as that provided under the European Copernicus Programme.”

For more information please visit www.earthi.space and follow on twitter and linkedin

Three radar images were acquired by the Sentinel-2A satellite on April 12, 2017 , May 19, before and on June 21, 2017 after the Amyntaio (Anargyroi) landslide in western Macedonia (Greece) on June 10, 2017. S2A images processed through NDVI classification with their spatial resolution is 10 metres. Compasion of the three images show the progress of the landslide that occurred in the region of the active Amyntaio Anargyroi lignite mine of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) of Greece (Ganas, A. 2017). According to official reports the landslide area was about 3.3 square kilometres. Through normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) classification of the three dates, detection of land cover change was observed. The main body of landslide was clearly identified due to neighboring of different land use areas mainly mining and agricultural activities.

Satellite images before the landslide

After the landslide

NDVI Comparison between 2 dates

Authors: Krassakis Pavlos MSc geologist / GIS Specialist and Kazana Stavroula MSc geologist

AZO is currently looking for experts to become mentors of the Copernicus Accelerator programme, funded by the European Commission. The initiative aims to provide a tailored business coaching service to foster the development of commercial Earth observation applications and products.

Mentors for Copernicus Accelerator

The Copernicus Accelerator has been initiated by the European Commission in the framework of the Copernicus Masters in 2016. Thanks to this, the top 50 ideas will get customised business coaching. Therefore, the accelerator is now looking for mentors to provide e.g. business support, integration into an incubator, win over a first client, raising funding, etc. Mentors can provide services for up to 2 teams / entrepreneurs of the 50 best ranked Copernicus Masters participants. The chosen mentors will be remunerated 5.000 € at the end of the coaching experience, that will last approximately up to 1 year. In addition travel costs and accommodation to Tallinn are covered to participate in the accelerator boot-camp (6-7 Nov 2017) that will take place in line with the Award Ceremony.

The eligibility criteria to become a mentor are the following:

  • Employed with a legal identity registered in the territory of one of the Copernicus Participating Countries, whose business purpose is focused on business consulting, e.g. business incubation centres, consulting companies, business intermediaries, university-based startup centres, innovation agencies etc.
  • Individual mentors that reside in the territory of one of the Copernicus Participating Countries, with a proven track record of customer references (preferably startups) that they have mentored in the chosen field of expertise

Register as a mentor until July 28
More information on Copernicus Accelerator

Wednesday, June 7, 2017. EO Cloud Platform, developed by Creotech Instruments S.A. and Cloud Ferro Sp. z o.o. has joined the pan-European ambassador network of Copernicus Programme.

Members of this community will be responsible for promoting the benefits of the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, informing about its advantages and opportunities, expanding the user community, developing new applications, and promoting the potential of using satellite data.

As the official representative of Copernicus Relay, Polish companies responsible for the development of the EO Cloud platform, combining a powerful repository of up-to-date satellite data with cloud computing, will coordinate and develop initiatives promoting the Copernicus Programme as a source of public and reliable data and information that can help develop business and stimulate economic growth in the European Union.

An ambitious programme of Earth observation
Copernicus is a European Union program designed to develop European information services based on satellite Earth observations and in situ data collection by ground stations, and airborne and marine sensors. The programme is coordinated and managed by the European Commission and the development of observation infrastructures is under the umbrella of the European Space Agency and the Member States.
The collected data help us understand how our planet and climate change, the role human actions play in these changes, and how they affect our daily lives. According to the programme’s creators, the prosperity and security of future generations is more than ever dependent on coordinated actions at international level and on conscious environmental policy. In order to take the right action, policy makers, businesses and citizens must have reliable and up-to-date information on the changes taking place on our planet and the progressive climate change.
The main users of Copernicus services are decision-makers and public authorities who need information to develop environmental legislation and policies or make key emergency decisions, in situations such as natural disasters or humanitarian crises.

Development impulse to Europe
Information provided by Copernicus can be used by end users for a wide range of applications in a variety of areas. These include: urban management, sustainable development and nature conservation, regional and local planning, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, health, civil protection, infrastructure, transport and mobility, and tourism.
According to the European Commission, data provided by European satellites can contribute to the development of innovative services and products dedicated to public institutions and businesses.

About EO Cloud
EO Cloud is a flexible tool that combines a powerful repository of up-to-date satellite data with a cloud of computing capabilities to find, process, and extend data stored in a repository. The platform enables entrepreneurs to create their own services based on the use of Earth observation data. It has a friendly interface and a flexible price list tailored to the needs of different users. EO Cloud resources are used by businesses, academics, universities, public institutions, and research institutes all over the world. The platform was created within a project implemented by an international consortium of companies: Creotech Instruments S.A, CloudFerro Sp. z o.o. and Brockmann Consult at the request of the European Space Agency.

Additional information is provided by:
Dawid Michnik, mob: +48 603 504 709, d.michnik@attentionmarketing.pl
Kamil Melcer, mob. +48 606 996 681, kmelcer@cloudferro.com

Source

TRE continue to apply their expertise to support the RATP (the public operator for the transport of Paris) in their efforts to ensure greater safety and security and network availability by using the most innovative satellite technology. Since 2012, the RATP has been using TRE ALTAMIRA services to support the maintenance of their network.

Benjamin Gorget, civil engineer and project manager at the RATP Department for the Management of Infrastructures, explains that the RATP gives great importance to the integration of advanced technologies in their mission of providing a more secure, reliable and efficient transport service. The use of satellite technology has proven key for a comprehensive monitoring of the Parisian network as it enables to better anticipate any impact caused by ground motion.

The RATP implements a surveillance programme based on traditional methods which are very precise but less flexible, explains Benjamin Gorget. As these campaigns are on-site they need to be conducted during the night with no train circulation. Satellite monitoring represents the ideal complement of these methods.

A new study has recently been delivered to the RATP focusing on the monitoring of the aerial network covering a total area of 77km. Special attention has been paid to bridges and viaducts which are considered sensitive structures as their construction dates back to the 1960s. These updates keep the RATP constantly informed about any slightest movement detected likely to cause disorders on these structures.

The study was made with data from the TerraSAR-X satellite and the results delivered by TRE ALTAMIRA included 1,2 million of measurement points that confirmed that the area studied is generally stable.


Ground motion map of a section of the aerial network for the period studied (2011-2016).

Source

WESTMINSTER, Colo.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Jul. 6, 2017— DigitalGlobe, Inc. (NYSE: DGI), the global leader in Earth imagery and information about our changing planet, today announced it has selected Space Systems Loral (SSL) to build the spacecraft for its next-generation WorldView Legion constellation, which will deliver industry-leading resolution and accuracy, enable high-revisit applications, and assure service continuity for the company’s customers through 2030.

SSL has entered into a firm-fixed price contract with DigitalGlobe to build the WorldView Legion satellites—the first of which is planned to launch in 2020—to replace the WorldView-1, WorldView-2, and GeoEye-1 satellites. The WorldView Legion constellation will double DigitalGlobe’s capacity to collect 30 cm and multi-spectral imagery starting in 2020. Once combined with DigitalGlobe’s existing WorldView satellites and the forthcoming Scout small satellite constellation, DigitalGlobe will image the most rapidly changing areas on Earth as frequently as every 20 to 30 minutes, from sunup to sundown. These capabilities will provide even greater insights into global events of significance, giving customers the ability to make critical decisions with confidence when time is of the essence.

“WorldView Legion represents DigitalGlobe’s commitment to meet the demanding and evolving needs of our diverse customer base for many years to come, building upon our excellent track record of performance, best-in-class satellites and ground infrastructure, and deep understanding of government mission needs and commercial applications,” said Dr. Walter Scott, DigitalGlobe Founder, EVP & CTO. “We have great confidence in the quality, value, and reliability of the SSL spacecraft.”

“The award of this contract with DigitalGlobe demonstrates our emerging leadership in building satellite constellations and Earth observing spacecraft,” said Richard White, President of SSL Government Systems. “DigitalGlobe is known as a global leader in advanced geospatial solutions, and we are pleased that they have placed their trust in our proven performance and state-of-the-art design for a fleet that will provide exceptional agility and persistence.”

Source

7 July 2017. Rezatec is working with the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and UK Space Agency to establish how common threats to forests can be detected and addressed to mitigate risk to valuable tree stock.

Through the Space Applications for Precision Plant Health Information, Response & Evaluation project, funded by the UK Space Agency’s Space for Smarter Government Program (SSGP), DEFRA’s Plant Health team used Rezatec’s geospatial forestry intelligence products to generate an understanding of how Earth Observation (EO) technology can be used to address the challenges posed by tree pests and diseases.

Rezatec is also working closely with Forestry Corporation New South Wales (FCNSW) in Australia to enrich its existing forestry datasets with derived tree type mapping to help the organization understand its forested land assets and support strategic decision making.

“Forestry Corporation NSW manages 2.2 million hectares of state forest across New South Wales. Remotely sensed data is an important forest management tool and combining this with accurately located plot information provides an opportunity to add value to this data. Given the complexity of eucalypt forests this is a difficult task. But FCNSW is watching, with interest, the modeling approach being trialed by Rezatec, and has provided plot data to assist with the model development phase, which is an important first step in getting cost effective, current and consistent information about the forest estate,” stated Mike Sutton, manager of forest information and planning at FCNSW.

Source

The Sentinel Hub, a satellite imagery web services for seamless integration of open EO data in any GIS application is richer for Sentinel-2 L2A products and Sentinel-1 SAR data.

The Sentinel Hub is a satellite imagery web services for seamless integration of open EO data in any web, desktop or mobile GIS application. It makes satellite data (Sentinel, Landsat, and others) easily accessible for browsing or analysis.

Its service-oriented satellite imagery cloud infrastructure takes care of the complexity of handling the imagery archive and makes it available via easy-to-integrate web services. No need to download large files, manage complex formats, process, re-project, mosaic, etc. No need for enormous storage volumes and compute power.

In the last months the Sentinel Hub is in great demand, which can be attributed also to new advanced features and the availability of the new products recently integrated into the services.

New datasets available

To already supported products such as Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, ESA’s archive of Landsat 5, 7 and 8, global coverage of Landsat 8, and Envisat Meris, the Sentinel-2 L2A products and Sentinel-1 SAR data were added. Both of newly integrated data sources are available for browsing through publicly available EO Browser and other Sentinel Hub web services.

Sentinel-2 L2A

The Sentinel-2 L2A data are atmospherically corrected using Sen2Cor by ESA. The data available through Sentinel Hub is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is available in original tiles for AWS users. One can explore and download the satellite imagery with two types of atmospheric correction, the official L2A data available for wider Europe, and a run-time optimized statistical atmospheric correction, provided by Sinergise and available for the whole Sentinel-2 archive.


The Dunes of Costa Verde, Sardinia, Italy, acquired with EO Browser on June 13, 2017

Sentinel-1 SAR

SAR data are much more complex than optical, but the fact that S-1 data are not orthorectified proved to be the most difficult challenge. Sinergise managed to facilitate MapZen’s DEM data hosted by AWS and, using data fusion with Sentinel-1 available on EO Cloud in Poland, integrate Sentinel-1 SAR data successfully into the Sentinel Hub services.


Ship Monitoring – Sentinel-1 uses wide area coverage with improved revisit times and is able to potentially detect smaller ships. Port of Antwerp, acquired with EO Browser on June 11, 2017

Explore the data on your own

To explore the Sentinel Hub capabilities and use more advanced services, such as the WMS service, request a free trial at www.sentinel-hub.com/trial, or apply for ESA’s funded free R&D account.

Source

These contracts, together with the ones obtained for the processor prototypes, position the company as a leader in the processing of EUMETSAT Polar System.

EUMETSAT has recently awarded the contracts for the EPS-SG payload exploitation ground segment, selecting Elecnor Deimos for the provision of the operational processors of 6 of the instruments. The EPS-SG programme is expected to be among the most important providers of satellite observation data for all forecasts based on Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) from 2020 to 2040. The instrument data will be provided to the users in near real-time, after acquisition and processing by the ground segment.

These contracts, together with the ones obtained for the processor prototypes of the development phase that was managed by the European Space Agency (ESA) between 2015 and 2016, position Deimos as a leader in the processing of EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). EUMETSAT will provide services and operate the polar orbiting satellites for a nominal duration of 21 years, which leads to an expected workload for Deimos that involves long-term development and updates.

EPS-SG consists of two, parallel series of satellites, Metop-SG A and Metop-SG B, and a constellation deployment scenario allowing parallel operations of multiple satellites. The programme will generate important socio-economic benefits to EUMETSAT Member and Cooperating States, leveraging the capability of polar orbiting satellites to deliver unique infrared and microwave imagery inputs from high latitudes that are key to the National Meteorological Services. It represents the European contribution to the future Joint Polar System (JPS) that, as the Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS), will be established together with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States.