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Athens, Greece – July 04th, 2017. Planetek Hellas and Planetek Italia have signed a framework contract with the European Union Satellite Center (SatCen), for the provision of Earth Observation based Very High Resolution Reference Mapping products in support to FRONTEX, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

The information products to be provided will enhance border surveillance, a current challenge for the European Union as regards migration and security. The Reference Mapping Service aims at providing a background of geographical context, including relevant information on hydrography, topography, land cover, infrastructure and population. The service will support the monitoring of border areas and the improvement of decision-making and response capabilities of the authorities responsible for controlling and monitoring European borders.

“Being the only SME’s within this group of large companies that have signed the same framework contract is certainly a challenge for us”, said Giovanni Sylos Labini, CEO, Planetek Italia and Planetek Hellas. “We are thankful to SatCen for the trust that has shown to Planetek Group and we are committed to provide the best possible services to this highly esteemed EU Entrusted Entity”, he concluded.

“We are very pleased and at the same time very conscious about the responsibility we undertake, to be able to contribute to such a delicate issue for the European Union. The fact that our countries, Greece and Italy, are among the most affected ones from the situation in the wider neighbouring region, increases the level of our commitment to perform well,” said Stelios Bollanos, Director of Planetek Hellas, who is the leading company of the consortium.

About Planetek Hellas
Planetek Hellas is an SME company founded in 2006, in Athens, Greece, which operates in the field of Earth Observation, Science Data Exploitation, INSPIRE compliant Spatial Data Infrastructures and software development for the on-board and the Ground Segment. The company’s applications and solutions are developed within the most important European programs in the field of Space-related applications and integrated satellite systems for the management, analysis and sharing of coastal and land-related information. Planetek Hellas has now in its own portfolio a variety of successful contracts with the European Commission, the European Space Agency and EU Entrusted Entities, which allow an excellent knowledge of the European procedures and high quality requirements.
Media Contact: Elia Mavrodonti – Phone: +30 6977569765 – Email: news @ planetek.gr

About Planetek Italia
Planetek Italia is an Italian company founded in 1994 specialised in Earth observation, Space solutions and geoservices. The company provides solutions to exploit the value of geospatial data through all phases of data life cycle from acquisition, storage, management up to analysis and sharing. Planetek Italia operates in many application areas ranging from environmental and land monitoring to open-government and smart cities, and including defence and security, as well as scientific missions and planetary exploration.
Media Contact: Antonio Buonavoglia – Phone: +39 0809644200 – Email: news @ planetek.it

Water and sewer network risks can be accurately identified, today, using RADAR satellites, which monitor millimeter displacements on ground surface that could indicate leaking pipes. Planetek Italia has developed Rheticus® Network Alert is a new Smart M.App, designed for organizations and professionals working in utilities network, engineering and network operations, to get accurate information about infrastructures stability.

Available on the store of Hexagon Geospatial, Network Alert identifies up-to-date risks in water and sewage networks by using RADAR satellite data to identify areas of ground instability that could indicate leaking pipes. With Network Alert, you can quickly determine the locations of concern and act upon the information.

Warning alerts and geo-analytics let operators prioritize inspection and maintenance activities, increasing efficiency and lowering total management costs.

Using the power of the Hexagon Smart M.App, Planetek Italia has developed this unique service, to deploy Rheticus®, its cloud-based platform that delivers automatic geo-information services, designed to provide accurate data and up-to-date information about our changing world.

The Rheticus geoinformation service uses a series of industry-focused Hexagon Smart M.Apps to deliver timely and accurate information to professionals and decision makers for their operations. Whether monitoring vertical displacement on the ground to identify potential problems in water and sewage pipelines or keeping track of coastal seawater quality, the Smart M.Apps delivered by Rheticus provide industry-focused answers and present information in a visual and compelling way.

Features and Benefits of Rheticus® Network Alert:

  • Immediate Insight: Warning alerts let you easily assess the level of displacement in each segment of your network.
  • Reduced Costs and Increased Efficiency: Network Alert optimizes pipeline inspection planning, letting you send field crews to areas of concern.
  • Continuous Monitoring & Frequent updates: Based on the continuous satellite monitoring of ground movements and displacements, Network Alert provides accurate and updated information on a monthly or quarterly basis.
  • High Precision Measurements: Millimetric measurements of ground displacement also record movement velocity and rate of acceleration
  • Total area monitoring: Network Alert uses satellite imagery to monitor water and sewer networks across your entire area, optimizing field inspections across vast expanses.
  • Satellite images: Displacements are measured by satellite, so there is no need for additional devices in the field. This highly reliable RADAR satellite data is collected frequently and quickly converted into business intelligence insights.
  • Displacement trend analysis: Combined archive and current satellite data identify trends in ground displacement.
  • Actionable information: After detection of an alarm on a segment, use reports to send technical teams to the field with the information they need to respond quickly.
  • Subscription updates: A subscription service ensures that your information is always up-to-date. The service provides periodic updates (monthly or quarterly) for your area of interest. Subscribed users get immediate access to network stability as measured through the last year of satellite images, plus timely image updates.

More info

Geo4i company is proud to announce the achievement of its geospatial platform. This SaaS is dedicated to the integration, exploitation, displaying, analysis and sharing of geolocated timestamped mass data from multiple sources.

Multi sources platform: Make timestamped analyzes by comparing all databases available and the timeline.

Mass data exploitation: the system instantly displays more than 5 million points on the map.

Dataviz tool: on the fly heatmap treatment on data.

Classification of a database: display and discriminate useful information from your database.

Quick integration et vectorization: thanks to its specific data models and input information guide, it’s very easy and fast to describe any element of interest like site (airfield, harbor, nuclear site…) or activity (ship, aircraft, land vehicle…).

Automated treatments: from the platform, order products by defining dates and areas of interest. Calculation and integration are fully automated.
Products available are generation of coherence map, detection of active fires, detection of ships on sea.

Raster displaying: On the fly spectral bands mix and calculation from satellite images.

Queensland is home to some of the earth’s most delicate ecosystems including the Great Barrier Reef. These sensitive 1.8 million square kilometers are the responsibility of Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources and Mines to manage, and taking on this task has been radically modernized with help from geospatial analysis experts, Geoplex, equipped with recent and rich Planet data.

Queensland is home to nearly 5 million citizens and some of the earth’s most delicate ecosystems. At 1.8 million square kilometers, the region contains rare earth resources, unique biodiversity and sensitive coastlines neighbouring the Great Barrier Reef.

Protecting this vast natural landscape is the challenge of Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources and Mines to manage. To complement field practices, the DNRM turned to satellite imagery to monitor regions of the state.

Bringing recency and reliability to satellite imaging

For years, the DNRM relied on annual satellite imagery up dates of large regions of the state, often delivered via external hard drive for processing. This led to delays in image analysis, creating critical gaps in information and lags in time-sensitive responses by resource managers. The department recognized the potential to modernize their approach to satellite imaging as a primary tool for monitoring resources, and turned to mapping and GIS specialists Geoplex for help.

“When the DNRM contract came up for renewal, we knew we could offer the department a solution that focused more on timely delivery of content,” says Nigel Conolly, sales and marketing manager at Geoplex.
To build timely and accessible solutions Geoplex looked to Planet’ high-cadence imaging and cloud-based delivery. Having consistent and current satellite imagery can greatly improve DNRM’s land management practices; Planet’s automated data pipeline offered a fast, reliable cloud infrastructure to the department, and proved recent and complete coverages of the entire state.

“This solution would provide the department with current information, empowering them to make more informed decisions,” states Conolly.

Monitoring to understand and protect interconnected ecosystems


Monitoring runoff sediments load in rivers provides data to those working to improve coastal water quality and reef health. Image captured May 6, 2017.

Planet imaging and Geoplex analysis revealed new capabilities in environmental monitoring and protection for Queensland. For example, connecting rainfall data in key catchment areas and tracking uplands vegetation could help managers and scientists understand the connection between land and coastal reef health.

In instances of extreme events, Planet data is also helping the DNRM respond. This May 2017 marked record flooding of Rockhampton, Queensland in the wake of Cyclone Debbie. With daily imaging available before, during and after the flood surge, the DNRM could monitor impacts to natural and urban environments, and work with authorities to manage responses to the flood. Planet enabled the DNRM to make daily imagery available to the public through the Disaster Data program to help coordinate relief efforts.

With more timely information, the DNRM is able to actively respond to and prevent land degradation activities. Land clearing that previously had gone undetected could be identified and documented providing Queensland’s DNRM the information to formally engage property owners and deter future incursion of environmentally protected areas. Creating a comprehensive and current picture of the state helps Queensland understand and preserve the complex balances of its unique natural environment.

Planet imagery is bringing new capabilities to the DNRM and other Queensland government agencies. Steve Jacoby, Executive Director, Land & Spatial Information, DNRM, says “We are very excited to be working with daily imagery over Queensland that DNRM has been able to acquire through the Planet platform. The access to high quality, daily imagery for use by all government agencies under this arrangement sets a new benchmark that we expect will have far-reaching benefits for the state.”

Geoplex is currently building tools on Planet API and believes their work with Planet data will serve to disrupt land management practices for government ministries moving forward. “This project is an example of how innovation pays off,” says Conolly. “Working with Planet, we’re helping the Queensland government adopt technology that will take them into the future, with the flexibility to deal with what’s ahead.”

Read the full story of the Geoplex and Planet project in Queensland.

Planetek Italia has been presented with the EARSC Company Achievement Award during the Association’s Annual cocktail, held on 4th July in Brussels. We want to thank Airbus and Specto Natura for their sponsorship.

Geoff Sawyer, EARSC Secretary General, Giovanni Sylos Labini- CEO Planetek Italia and Chetan Pradhan, EARSC Chairman

EARSC has thereby recognised Planetek Italia as the company that have made the most significant contribution to the development of the Earth Observation sector in Europe. The criteria used for the selection of the winning company were:

  • the successful development of EO services for a target market (sector or geographic)
  • a strong contribution to a defining European programme (eg. Copernicus, Inspire, ESA projects, etc)
  • exhibited good revenue and/or employment growth.

Since its foundation Planetek has worked with its partners to develop new services and increase its market share, both in new and existing markets. Notably, the company has developed Rheticus®, an automated cloud-based geo-information service platform. It was designed in house to deliver up-to-date, accurate maps, and historical graphical data via a user friendly dashboard. A significant achievement in 2017 is the exploitation of open data such as Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 for use by customers and users from both private and public sectors. Planetek will pursue this in the years to come.

Nominations for the award were collected from EARSC members who then vote and the winner has been selected by an international, independent jury of EO sector representatives.

Planetek Italia is an Italian company specialised in Earth observation, Space solutions and geoservices. The company provides solutions to exploit the value of geospatial data through all phases of data life cycle from acquisition, storage, management up to analysis and sharing. Planetek Italia operates in many application areas ranging from environmental and land monitoring to open-government and smart cities, and including defense and security, as well as scientific missions and planetary exploration.

EARSC represents the Earth Observation geo-information services companies in Europe. Today EARSC has 96 members coming from more than 22 countries in Europe. Our members include both commercial operators of EO satellites, IT, downstream and value-adding companies. The sector plays a key role in providing value-added geo-spatial information to its customers in Europe and the world. In 2016, the revenue of the European EO services sector is estimated to be around one billion euros for approximatively 450 companies and giving work to nearly 7000 highly skilled employees.

Download the Press release

More information on the EARSC company of the year competition

June 14, 2017. Planet’s mission to image Earth’s entire landmass everyday expands to the open sea. With approximately 70% of the planet covered by oceans, Planet is expanding its capabilities to explore hundreds of kilometres offshore to collect key maritime insights.

Since its founding back in 2010, Planet’s worked to build a constellation capable of imaging the Earth’s entire landmass every day, something we are on track to accomplish following our launch of 88 satellites in February. But Planet’s “ line-scanner” constellation can image more than just land. Approximately 70% of the Earth’s surface is actually water, so there’s an amazing opportunity for us to look at our oceans and seas.

Planet’s Doves have long had the capability to image out into open waters—in fact our standard operating procedure is to continue capturing imagery several kilometers offshore—but it’s proven tricky to georeference them precisely without nearby reference points. With recent upgrades on our newest satellite design, coupled with the advanced automation techniques in our image processing pipeline, we are now able to geolocate individual open water scenes within an acceptable margin of error, even hundreds of kilometers out to sea.

With this new capability, Planet will selectively turn on its cameras to take a closer look at certain maritime areas. In speaking with our users, we know that there is a lot of activity on the high seas that may otherwise go unnoticed, such as illegal fishing or trade in contraband. There is also interest in being able to quantify the type and number of ships that choose not to broadcast Automatic Identification System status or intentionally misreport their locations.

Planet’s unique monitoring constellation ensures that we can always monitor open waters without the need for tasking. This is particularly useful in areas which do not typically see extensive maritime traffic, such as off the North Korean coast in the Sea of Japan, where we spotted a group of ships heading west out of the port of Wonsan.

Image: May 17, 2017 ©Planet

In other areas, the density of ships can be quite remarkable. In one strip from the 17th of May, 2017, we can see that the passage between the Ryukyu Islands of Japan and the Chinese mainland is a hive of activity.

Long wakes and smoke trails of ships as they travel:

Image: May 17, 2017 ©Planet

Planet are currently rolling out a limited engagement program with select Planet customers and will begin broadly selling our Open Water monitoring program in fall of 2017.

More information

As a key member of Planet’s Application Developer Program, Dattabot uses big data analytics as a way of generating new insights for smallholder farmers and is help to make practices more efficient and yields more predictable, helping growers gain access to credit.

Farmers are often at the mercy of the elements. A wetter-than-usual growing season, for example, could provide a hospitable environment for crop diseases that significantly impact yields. Changes in crop conditions over time could signal near-term production booms or long-term problems.

For Indonesian farmers, the uncertainty of weather patterns, soil conditions, and disease outbreaks can create an additional challenge: many can’t secure loans at reasonable rates. “Financial institutions are reluctant to provide financing to small farmers who often cannot reliably predict crop yields,” explains Dina Kosasih, agriculture vertical lead at Jakarta-based data analytics company Dattabot. “Many of these farmers end up resorting to sources that provide credit at exorbitant rates.”

Dattabot is helping to change that. As a key member of Planet’s Application Developer Program, Dattabot uses big data analytics as a way of generating new insights for farmers as well as for organizations in consumer goods, government, and financial services.

Assisting farmers required Dattabot to analyze data on crops and soil captured from above. At first, Dattabot considered using drones to collect images of farms and record sensor readings. But these relatively low-flying devices took too long to cover even small farms and were too frequently grounded due to poor weather.
To overcome these obstacles to visualizing the ground, Dattabot decided to use data collected from space.


Smallholder fields in Bali

Dattabot utilizes high-frequency satellite imaging from Planet

Dattabot wanted to capture images from larger areas of farmland, faster, to keep costs under control. At the same time, the company wanted to collect images at a greater frequency and consistency than a drone could manage. “We needed high-frequency imaging to have the best chance of getting clear, cloud-free shots of farms,” says Kosasih. High-frequency imaging can also help anticipate crop changes that might signal disease, pests, or soil problems.

The Dattabot team decided to work with Planet. We are able to capture high-frequency and high-resolution images, and deliver continuous data that is ready for analysis. “Planet is unique in delivering data from its satellites directly to the cloud, and we can access that critical information within 24 hours,” says Kosasih.

Farmers—and their lenders—can better anticipate the future

By producing new insights from satellite data that we collect and deliver, Dattabot is helping to make a huge difference in the lives of farmers. Through its analysis, Dattabot can provide farmers with agricultural recommendations that improve their crop yields.

At the same time, better information is expected to give farmers easier access to credit. The Dattabot team anticipates that financial institutions will have the confidence they need to lend money to small farmers.
To help increase the odds of securing loans, Dattabot is also partnering with organizations that promote microfinance. Connecting small farmers with small-scale lenders could help ensure more farmers receive the financial support they need—not just to survive but to flourish.

More information
Download the success story in PDF

Deimos Imaging’s matrix, UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) (“UrtheCast” or the “Company”), and Land O’ Lakes, Inc., one of the United States’ premier agribusiness and food companies, announced a long-term agreement for GEOSYS, a Land O’Lakes subsidiary, to purchase geospatial data from the UrtheDaily Constellation, UrtheCast’s planned constellation of Earth observation satellites which will deliver daily, medium resolution imagery of the entire planet’s landmass.

By entering this agreement, GEOSYS will become an anchor customer for the UrtheDaily Constellation . GEOSYS, already the UrtheCast group’s largest agricultural customer and one of the world’s leading providers of digital agriculture solutions, will use the data to improve the decision-making processes for their customers globally, including WinField United, the Land O’Lakes crop input business.

GEOSYS has 30 years of experience in the industry and views this flow of data as a highly innovative technical and commercial game changer for in-season field monitoring,” says Damien Lepoutre, GEOSYS founder and president. “The UrtheDaily Constellation is being built on a heritage of proven technology and is the only solution we’ve seen clearly designed to meet our demanding data requirements. This will dramatically increase the value of decision support tools made available to farmers through our customers. As a result, we are committed to helping UrtheCast bring UrtheDaily to market.”


Deimos-1 image, Crops in Montana

The UrtheCast group has worked collaboratively with GEOSYS in recent years – along with customers operating in such diverse sectors as water management, insurance, municipal planning, finance and defense and intelligence – to conceptualize and design the UrtheDaily Constellation. The Constellation, expected to be comprised of eight Earth observation satellites, is designed to capture medium-resolution imagery of the Earth’s entire landmass (excluding Antarctica) every day, producing machine learning-ready, scientific-grade data to help geoanalytics companies measure and monitor change on our planet, and ultimately help to address some of Earth’s biggest challenges, at scale. Providing the UrtheDaily dataset to GEOSYS will enable their customers to make more profitable and agronomically sound decisions.

“We are honored to announce GEOSYS as the UrtheDaily anchor customer for agriculture,” stated Wade Larson, UrtheCast’s President and CEO. “The selection of UrtheDaily by GEOSYS, a pioneer in digital agriculture, validates our belief that UrtheDaily is the remote-sensing constellation of choice for the sophisticated geoanalytics market. We at UrtheCast are extremely pleased to partner with an organization that shares many of our core values and ambitions as we look to jointly harness the capabilities of UrtheDaily to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues.”

Under the terms of the agreement, payments will be made as soon as UrtheCast begins delivering UrtheDaily Constellation data to GEOSYS, subject to UrtheCast arranging its financing for the build and launch of the UrtheDaily Constellation, and other customary covenants for agreements of this nature.


Deimos-2 image, Crops in Oman

About GEOSYS
GEOSYS is the first global digital agriculture company founded by agronomists. With 30 years of industry experience, GEOSYS provides clients with data, analysis and insights needed to make more informed decisions. Services range from worldwide risk management and monitoring agricultural commodities to input sales and precision farming support by using the latest research in agronomics, information technologies and remote sensing. GEOSYS also develops highly customized business solutions for large, multinational agricultural companies. Acquired by Land O’Lakes, Inc. in 2013 as an independent business, GEOSYS is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with offices in France, Switzerland, Australia, and Brazil. For more information, visit www.geosys.com.

About UrtheCast Corp.
UrtheCast Corp. is a Vancouver-based technology company that serves the rapidly evolving geospatial and geoanalytics markets with a wide range of information-rich products and services. The Company currently operates four Earth Observation sensors in space, including two cameras aboard the International Space Station and two satellites, Deimos-1 and Deimos-2. Imagery and video data captured by these sensors is downlinked to ground stations across the planet and displayed on the UrthePlatform, or distributed directly to partners and customers. UrtheCast is also developing and anticipates launching the world’s first fully-integrated constellation of multispectral optical and SAR satellites, called OptiSAR™, in addition to its proposed UrtheDaily™ Constellation, which the Company believes will together revolutionize monitoring of our planet with high-quality, medium and high-resolution, and high-coverage and high-revisit imagery in all weather conditions, any time of day. Common shares of UrtheCast trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ticker ‘UR’.
For more information, visit UrtheCast’s website at www.urthecast.com.

Forward Looking Information
This release contains certain information which, as presented, constitutes “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information involves statements that relate to future events and often addresses expected future business and financial performance, containing words such as “anticipate”, “believe”, “plan”, and “expect”, statements that an action or event “may” or “will” be taken or occur, or other similar expressions and includes, but is not limited to: UrtheCast’s future growth and constellation operations plans; plans regarding the financing, build, launch and operation of the planned UrtheDaily Constellation, and the delivery of imagery produced by the UrtheDaily Constellation to GEOSYS; and UrtheCast’s expectations regarding GEOSYS complying with its payment obligations and other terms of the agreement with UrtheCast. Such statements reflect UrtheCast’s current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by UrtheCast, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors could cause UrtheCast’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, among others: any delays or failures in the design, development, construction, launch and operational commissioning of the proposed OptiSAR or UrtheDaily constellations; the Company being unable to deliver imagery products meeting the minimum specifications required by the agreement with GEOSYS described above; the Company being unable to finance the build, launch and commissioning of the UrtheDaily Constellation; the Company being unable to convert the Memoranda of Understanding in respect of funding of the OptiSAR constellation into binding, definitive agreements; interruptions to or failures of UrtheCast’s infrastructure; legal and regulatory changes, as well as those factors and assumptions discussed in UrtheCast’s annual information form dated March 28, 2017, (the “AIF”), which is available under UrtheCast’s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information is developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein, in the AIF, and as disclosed from time to time on UrtheCast’s SEDAR profile. UrtheCast undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by Canadian securities laws. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

The Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) said on July 6 that it has received backing and funding support for a satellite imagery and intelligence service for all Lloyd’s managing agents.

The new service aims to enable improvements to claims processes and exposure management both pre and post a natural catastrophe across multiple classes of business. It will help Lloyd’s carriers to assess the extent of the damage/loss at an early stage by providing ‘ground truth’ intelligence such as satellite imagery and any available all-source data, according to the statement.

The data and analytics will allow Lloyd’s claims professionals to manage and adjust claims remotely, in some instances making early part-payment or full settlement to policy holders. The service will be delivered to each managing agent via MIS’s custom-built portal, the LMA said.

“Data and analytics are driving rapid change in our industry and I am pleased that we are supporting such an important and growing field,” said Ruth Cameron-Errington, senior claims executive at the LMA. “This service and the technology it brings will undoubtedly further improve the way in which claims professionals and the wider market manage and respond to claims post a significant natural catastrophe.”

Source

In the frame of this ESA Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) project, Eurosense targets to turn the outcome of research in salt karst hazards assessment in the Dead Sea into a full-operational service for decision makers, land planners and hotel managers.

The contribution of Sentinel-1 radar imagery to the service will be essential to do so. The results, combined with previous research achievements, will be communicated towards potential end-users which include the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Jordan, Zara Investment Holding and the Holiday Inn resort Dead Sea.

Overall benefit for the human collectivities:

The aim of the project is to improve the decision making process taking place in economic valorization projects. Systematic use of remote sensing technologies is meant to guarantee the security of major tourism infrastructures such as hotels, roads, bridges, dams and pipelines in salt karst terrain that are at high risk of sinkholes, subsidence and landslides. These threats have increasingly become a major geo-hazard in many areas around the world, especially in the Mediterranean basin.

Depending on the results of this proof of concept study, the technical service and the commercial approach developed in the Jordanian Dead Sea area will afterwards be extended for the assessment of tourism project sustainability in karst areas in the whole Mediterranean region.


Landslide at the Holiday Inn front beach, Dead Sea, Jordan.

Link to EUROSENSE Website