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The event, organised by EARSC with the support of ESA, took place on 25 January 2017 from 10:30 to 16:30, at the Royal Library of Belgium.

The main objective of the meeting was to hold a discussion on the steps being taken to help develop the market for EO services. In the first part, ESA and EARSC presented the initiatives being taken to help position European industry to benefit from the trends. ESA exposed the planned market development activities in both ground segment and applications divisions. EARSC presented the draft results of the MAEOS study . The presentation, in which we described our concept of an eoMALL, can be downloaded here .

In the second part, invited speakers presented their views on the market evolution. Leading mobile and business solutions providers will provide their perspective on the digital economy and how geospatial information is a transformational technology for many market segments. Subsequently, several companies and organisations providing EO services had the opportunity to present what they have done already to be ready for this transformation and share lessons learned from their experiences.

The ESA-developed Sentinel-2B satellite was launched on 7th March 2017 , doubling the coverage of high-resolution optical imaging in the Sentinel-2 mission for the European Union Copernicus environmental monitoring system.

At 01:49 GMT (02:49 CET) on 7 March 2017, the second Sentinel-2 satellite successfully lifted off from Kourou, the Europe’s Spaceport.

In line with plans, the satellite was delivered into the targeted Sun-synchronous orbit. Telemetry links and attitude control have been established by controllers and the satellite’s solar panel has already been deployed. After this first “launch and early orbit” phase, which typically lasts three days, controllers will begin checking and calibrating the instruments to commission the satellite. The mission is expected to begin operations in three to four months.

“With this launch we are taking another step toward advancing the Copernicus programme, which is the most sophisticated Earth observation system in the world. And we are planning to add two more satellites to the constellation in the next months: with Sentinel-5P and Sentinel-3B,” said ESA Director General Jan Woerner.

The optical imaging Sentinel-2 mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites: Sentinel-2A, which was launched in June 2015, and Sentinel-2B. Although launched separately, the satellites are placed in the same orbit, flying 180° apart. Every five days, the satellites jointly cover all land surfaces, large islands, and inland and coastal waters between latitudes 84°S and 84°N, optimising global coverage and data delivery.

Each Sentinel-2 satellite carries an innovative high-resolution multispectral camera with 13 spectral bands for a new perspective of land and vegetation. The combination of high-resolution, novel spectral capabilities, a field of vision covering 290 km and frequent revisit times will provide unprecedented views of Earth.

Information from this mission is helping to improve agricultural practices, monitor the world’s forests, detect pollution in lakes and coastal waters, and contribute to disaster mapping.

“I have personally been involved in Copernicus since its very first day and helped shape it along its way. It is therefore extremely satisfying to see the constellation of satellites delivering data for the services we have always dreamt of,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

“Sentinel-2A gets its twin brother in space with the launch of Sentinel-2B today. This allows global coverage every five days with the 13-channel high-resolution sensor, which is unprecedented in this class of satellites. I look forward to many new applications coming from Sentinel-2 now that this constellation is complete.”

Six families of Sentinel satellites will make up the core of EU’s Copernicus environmental monitoring network. An EU flagship space initiative, Copernicus provides operational information on the world’s land surfaces, oceans and atmosphere to support environmental and security policymaking, and meet the needs of citizens and service providers.

EARSC participated to the #Sentinel2Go event at ESOC together with 100 other social media participants from across Europe and beyond. Read our blog post .

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Milan, 9 February 2017. TRE ALTAMIRA has been awarded by SPEA Engineering S.p.A. (a Company of Atlantia Group) a contract for monitoring over a key motorway corridor in Central Italy, relying on TerraSAR-X satellite data, commercialized and distributed by Airbus.

This monitoring will be based on the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technique, which consists in generating surface deformation maps using images acquired by TerraSAR-X at different dates. The unique level of detail offered by InSAR coupled with the sensitivity and resolution of TerraSAR-X data will help to measure millimetre-scale changes in deformation. This is crucial to support risk management, by identifying unstable areas that could potentially affect structures.

Ground motion monitoring has become an important part of risk management when planning infrastructure projects. It increases the efficiency and safety of the excavation works and assists in asset protection. Thanks to high-resolution TerraSAR-X satellite data, Airbus both provides large area coverage and zoom-in capabilities to identify the smallest details. Combined with unrivalled geo-location accuracy, this allows highly precise change detection and monitoring.

InSAR technology has been used for more than a decade, demonstrating its capability to empower decision-making processes.

TRE ALTAMIRA, a CLS group company, has developed and is using its advanced radar satellite technology (SqueeSAR™) to detect ground motion with millimetre accuracy. SqueeSAR™ offers a time saving and cost effective solution for mapping ground displacement over wide and even remote areas. Moreover, it is a perfect complement to in situ observations enabling engineers to optimize both ground instrumentations and their location.

Airbus is a global leader in aeronautics, space and related services. In 2015, it generated revenues of €64.5 billion and employed a workforce of around 136,600. Airbus offers the most comprehensive range of passenger airliners from 100 to more than 600 seats. Airbus is also a European leader providing tanker, combat, transport and mission aircraft, as well as Europe’s number one space enterprise and the world’s second largest space business. In helicopters, Airbus provides the most efficient civil and military rotorcraft solutions worldwide.

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Copied from Pixalytics’ blog posted on 29 March 2017

Uganda is a landlocked country of just over 240,000 square kilometres. Agriculture is a key element of the country’s economy and was responsible for 23% of gross domestic product in 2011 and almost half the country’s exports the following year. According to the Food & Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 80% of the population relies on farming for its livelihood.

It has an equatorial climate, with regional variations, although recent recurrent dry spells have impacted on crop and livestock productivity. Pixalytics is delighted to be part of a consortium led by the RHEA Group, working with the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment and local NGOs to develop a Drought and Flood Mitigation Service (DFMS) to give practical information to help local communities respond to the effects of climate change.

Using computer models populated with satellite, meteorological, water resources and ground based data an innovative Environment Early Warning Platform will be developed to provide Ugandan farmers, via local NGO organisations, with forecasts throughout the growing seasons to enable them to take actions to maximise their crop yield.

Pixalytics, along with fellow consortium member, Environment Systems, are responsible for the Earth Observation data in the project. They’ll be looking at variety of optical and radar data to provide information about flood and drought conditions alongside crops and their growing conditions.

The project should benefit local communities by:

  • Improving the ability to forecast and mitigate droughts and floods on a local actionable scale.
  • Allowing NGOs to target resources saving time, money and lives.
  • Allowing farmers to improve their lives and better protect their livestock and crops.

Alongside Pixalytics, and RHEA Group, the consortium includes Environment Systems, Databasix, AA International, AgriTechTalk International, HR Wallingford, UK Met Office, Mercy Corps, and Oxford Policy Management. They will also work with international partners, including the Uganda Government Ministries, Kakira Sugar Company, and the NGO Green Dreams/iCOW.

This work is part of the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme and this is one of 21 projects chosen to provide solutions to local issues in counties across Africa, Asia, Central and South America.

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The Director General of the Civil Guard, José Manuel Holgado, closed out the CLOSEYE Project on 23 February 2017 in Málaga.

This is a maritime border surveillance and control initiative whose goal is to incorporate new tools such as unmanned aircraft, satellites and balloons into surveillance systems in an effort to improve the security of external maritime borders.

CLOSEYE is the first European innovation project led by Spain’s Civil Guard, and it represents its commitment to protecting and managing Europe’s southern border. All of the consortium’s members, including Isdefe, have devoted great efforts to this initiative, making available to it all of the material, aerial, maritime and human resources that were required.

The project lasted 47 months and was financed by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. CLOSEYE was kicked off in 2013 with help from the European Commission as part of a pioneering initiative on the application of new technologies to maritime surveillance, the first time such an initiative was led by Spain’s law enforcement agencies.

Isdefe is a partner in the consortium that successfully developed the CLOSEYE Project. Its participation was essential not only as an expert consultancy in areas related to the project, but also due to its expertise and knowledge in managing and implementing surveillance services. Isdefe thus reaffirms its constant commitment to innovation by taking part in cutting-edge R&D projects.

The CLOSEYE Project successfully accomplished its goals and is, in the words of the Civil Guard’s Director General, “the first and only example of an R&D project that paves the way to an initiative for community action amongst member States and that is going to be financed by Internal Security Funds”.

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(MADRID, Spain – March 7th, 2017) Hisdesat , the Spanish government satellite services company, has signed an agreement with U.S. company SpaceX to launch the Earth Observation Radar satellite, PAZ, on board a Falcon 9 rocket. The launch is targeted to take place during the last quarter of 2017, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Hisdesat , the Spanish government satellite services company, has signed an agreement with U.S. company SpaceX to launch the Earth Observation Radar satellite, PAZ, on board a Falcon 9 rocket. The launch is targeted to take place during the last quarter of 2017, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The numerous successes of Falcon 9 have been a driving factor for the election of Hisdesat to launch on board this rocket, which already has the confidence of other great companies.

The PAZ satellite incorporates as its main payload an active sensor with synthetic aperture radar technology that provides images of different sizes and resolutions, both day and night, and regardless of the weather conditions.This will allow for the provision of Earth observation solutions for multiple applications, both government and commercial, including those requiring very high resolution images, below one meter. The satellite will be able to take more than 100 images per day, delivring high resolution images coveringan area of more than 300,000 square kilometers per day. It will make fifteen revolutions a day around the Earth, at a height of 514 kilometers and with a speed of seven kilometers per second. Given its slightly inclined quasi-polar orbit, PAZ will cover the entire globe with a 24-hour mean revisit time.

In addition, as secondary payloads, the PAZ satellite will carry on board an ICE-CSIC Radio Occultation and Heavy Precipitation experiment (ROHP) and an AIS receiver from the Canadian listed company exactEarth, of which Hisdesat is the largest shareholder. This will be the first time that SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) and AIS data fusion are being simultaneously captured, allowing for the best possible monitoring of the maritime domain worldwide. Its total estimated weight is 1400 kg., measures 5 m. of height and has 2.4 m. diameter.

The satellite’s main contractor was Airbus Defence & Space, involving a consortium of 18 Spanish companies and universities. The owner of the ground segment is INTA, which has had as subcontractors a Spanish industrial group headed by INDRA, with GMV and DEIMOS, and the German DLR.

The PAZ satellite will be located in the same orbit as the German satellites TSX and TDX to form a SAR constellation, which will be exploited by Hisdesat and Airbus DS GEO, offering a shorter revisit time and greater number of images to our clients.

The PAZ satellite is part of the PNOTS National Earth Observation Satellite Program, with the Ingenio satellite (optical), led by the Ministry of Industry and the CDTI, being the other member of the aforementioned program.

(27 March 2017) GIM extends its satellite imagery portfolio with SI Imagery Services (KOMPSAT) and InterMap’s Digital Elevation Models.

SIIS: unique acquisition possibilities for tropical regions

GIM recently signed a distribution agreement with SI Imaging Services (SIIS). SIIS is the exclusive provider of the KOMPSAT series of satellites: the optical very high resolution KOMPSAT-2 (1 m), KOMPSAT-3 (70 cm) and KOMPSAT-3A (40 cm) and the radar satellite KOMPSAT-5.

The big advantage of KOMPSAT-3 and KOMPSAT-3A is that they allow image acquisition in the early afternoon, while almost all other remote sensing satellites only acquire imagery in the morning. For tropical regions in the world where it is often cloudy in the morning, but where the sun breaks through the clouds as the day evolves, these sensors provide unique acquisition possibilities at 40 to 70 cm resolution.

InterMap Digital Elevation Models (DEM)

GIM recently entered into a distribution agreement with InterMap , provider of a range of Digital Elevation Models. Elevation data can be used to visualize your area of interest in 3D, or to orthorectify satellite imagery.

InterMap’s flagship product is called“NextMap” and provides affordable 5 m resolution elevation models over the US and Europe. Their range also includes the World 10 and World 30 products, elevation data at 10 m resp. 30 m resolution available worldwide. All these products are “off-the-shelf” and can be made available very quickly.


Follow this link to see GIM’s complete satellite imagery portfolio >

(27 March 2017) GeoVille put together 20 years of experience and launched a new land monitoring system for automatic Land Cover mapping built on Sentinel data streams fulfilling multi-user application requirements.

Global demand for quality-controlled data enabling timely monitoring of the Earth’s land cover has significantly increased. New sensors and continuous big data streams are bringing together high revisit capacities and high spatial resolution (i.e. the Sentinel mission) and there have been significant technological leaps in terms of big data storage, deep data mining know-how and user enabled data retrieval. Thus, GeoVille developed and implemented an automatic, customer proven system for global land cover mapping, called LandMonitoring.Earth, including flexible theme-specific time-series classification modules. This land monitoring system is supporting global classification systems, such as LCCS and Copernicus LMS and enables customers to trigger application specific information solutions.

For more information, please refer to: http://landmonitoring.earth/

(30th March 2017) Earth-i has taken the opportunity to support the UK Space industry’s main gathering to discuss policy, progress and challenges by becoming a Gold Sponsor of the UK Space Conference 2017 held every two years.

This year the conference takes place at Manchester’s Central Convention Complex over three days from 30th May. The conference will bring together over a thousand delegates, and more than one hundred exhibitors, for in-depth discussions around the key opportunities and challenges facing the UK and international space industries from political and economic, to scientific and technical.

The UK Space Agency, a key supporter of the UK Space Conference, is supporting UK industry with the task of attracting at least 10% of the predicted £400bn global market for space to the UK by 2030. To achieve this ambitious aim, the country will need companies like Earth-i to grow and develop their UK-based satellite data capabilities and a range of industry-leading propositions offered to an ever expanding number of global customers.

Earth-i is perfectly placed to meet the challenge set by the Agency for ambituous growth, addressing the global market opportunity through their abilty to provide customers with high resolution imagery of areas of interest, and on a daily basis if required. Earth-i is already making healthy contributions towards these targets, having recently won a major State-wide contract for the Government of Queensland, Australia.

Chief Executive and founder of Earth-i, Richard Blain, explains his reasons for supporting the UK Space Conference as a Gold Sponsor, and how the company will help meet the country’s ambitions: “Earth-i is on an ambitious journey to cement its place as a leading UK company operating in the global market for satellite services. We fully support the 10% global market-share goal set by the British government; we are looking forward to discussing and debating how this can be achieved with our industry colleagues and partners at the UK Space Conference 2017.

“In addition to the opportunity to exhibit our capabilities, the forums and panels privide an ideal opportunity for us to add our voice to those of other leading players in the sector, both SMEs and large multinationals. We all have our role to play and we are especially looking forward to supporting the panel for the ‘Pitch to the Primes’ session on 31st May. SMEs like ourselves, with ambitious plans, will be as much the engines of growth as our colleagues in more established businesses.“

His views appear to be in accord with those of Sir Martin Sweeting, Executive Chairman of Earth-i’s neighbours SSTL, who said that “the UK Space Conference provides a vital forum for the UK Space Sector, academia and policy makers to network, debate, form new collaborations and do business.”

The workshop “Improving EO services industry involvement in EU space programmes and initiatives” organised by EARSC with the support of the European Commission will take place on 26 April 2017 from 9:30 to 17:00 at Breydel Auditorium in DG-GROW in Brussels .

EARSC, in coordination with DG GROW and DG RTD, is organising a full day-event on April 26 to discuss concrete ways for the improved industry involvement in the exploitation of Copernicus Services and the delivery of GEO vision.

The morning session will underline the key priorities of GEO with regards to industry engagement and, through the example of GEO-CRADLE, will provide a concrete account of tools that can help EU industry develop business in the Balkans, North Africa and Middle East.

In the afternoon, a lively discussion between representatives of the European Entrusted Entities and EU companies will take place, with the aim to establish a common roadmap for the improved exploitation of Copernicus Services by EU industry.

Download the draft agenda and register here