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Firstly, in the last couple of years you have been very active in supporting the European Flagship programmes Copernicus and Galileo among Members of the European Parliament (for which we are very grateful), what do you find particularly motivating about the space domain?

Its potential to improve normal people’s everyday lives, while often going beyond imagination in terms of technology and physics. The space domain represents an area where boundaries can still be pushed much further. We should do this in an intelligent way, in order to keep our economy competitive. Our concentration on the two flagship programs Galileo and Copernicus fits well in this approach.

Our community follows Galileo but is especially engaged with Copernicus, where do you see the most tangible results and benefits that the Copernicus programme brings to the European Union?

For me, the best possible result would be the involvement of many new companies of different forms and sizes that provide EO-enabled digital services to the public. Copernicus offers a great opportunity to SME’s and start-ups to be active in the space domain, something that was often reserved for larger players before. This development is not only profitable for our economy but it also improves the lives of consumers, who can benefit from better services. Also our public sector and European research institutions are obvious beneficiaries, because EO-data provides a wealth of information on which research and new policy may be based. Accordingly, Copernicus can contribute to solving large societal problem, for instance through CO2-monitoring. Because of Copernicus, Europe is a frontrunner on Earth Observation. This is particularly beneficial comsidering that we are only a moderate space-power compared to actors like the United States, China and Russia.

You mentioned several times the need for a strong communication strategy around the benefits of space data and applications. In your opinion, what should be done to better promote satellite applications and EO services in particular to the EU citizens?

This is not something that is easily done. We can only make a difference if everyone involved participates in communicating the benefits of satellite applications and space in general. So we should not just publish a tender for publicity agencies and then think we have solved the problem, but we should also be involved ourselves. Not only all involved politicians, but also space researchers, entrepreneurs and students. We live in an era of breaking silos, also when it comes to space. I myself try to inform people about space as much as I can in as many different ways as possible.

The EC has recently published the Space Strategy for Europe. Can you give us your perspective on this document and what you would consider a priority?

The space strategy is a good start, as it deals with the most important space policy issues for Europe. For me it was particularly important that it would advocate a strong role for the private sector, with clearly defined boundaries for public sector involvement. In this respect, I am happy with the Commission’s contribution. The strategy is also convincing when it comes to support for the current flagship programs Copernicus and Galileo and the intention to create cloud platforms for disseminating EO data. Our main priority should be to ensure a broad majority support for this strategy in the European Parliament. Once that is achieved we can focus on allocating the budgets in order to actually realise the plans.

The European Parliament will now react to the space strategy proposals, what should we expect as an outcome and how important should be the involvement of the EO industry?

As outlined above, the European Parliament should encourage the Commission to actually implement the strategy as quick as possible. In convincing both my colleagues and society as a whole that earth observation is of vital importance for our future, we need all the help from industry that we can get. Be good, tell it and sell it!

The strategy claims for a wider use of space data in numerous EU policies and key political priorities, how will the various EP Committees be involved in the process?

There will be several committees giving an Opinion to Parliament’s report on the space strategy that will be written in the Industry Committee (ITRE). This also includes committees that were previously never involved in space, such as the Fisheries Committee (PECH). Also the Transport Committee (TRAN), the Defence Committee (SEDE) and possibly the Environment Committee (ENVI) will write official opinions. This is a good start in showing the broad importance of space and involving more colleagues.

In your opinion, what will be the best mechanism to build a strong private-sector partnership with European research institutions to maximise Europe’s potential whilst avoiding unnecessary competition between private and public entities?

We should focus on where we can all act together in a triple helix approach: the private sector, research institutions and the public sector. We need to align all three in order to make it work, this is something I experienced when I was involved in setting up ‘Brainport Eindhoven’, a high-tech innovation partnership in the south of The Netherlands. To make such a partnership in space work, it is important that all actors share objectives and engage in cooperation with an open mind. Only then can we develop the innovation ecosystem that we need for space in Europe.

Turning to the question of the relationship between the private sector and the European Parliament, how do you see this dialogue mechanism and what specifically should be covered? Can the dialogue between EP and service industry be improved and if so how?

My doors are always open to anyone who wants to speak about the policy areas I am involved in. From the space sector there is already considerable interest to engage in such discussions, during which usually a large number of different perspectives and interests are presented. That is also the case with a number of colleagues that are very active on space policies. What we need to get broader attention is more cross-overs. Participation from space industry in debates about the digital single market, connectivity, precision agriculture etc. Get involved in debates in other sectors.

At the end of the interview, there is the opportunity for your final thoughts and how your activities could contribute to the future development of the EO geo-information service sector in Europe?

I will remain involved in space policy matters and I will make sure that I keep in touch with as many stakeholders as possible. As liberal shadow-rapporteur on the Space Strategy for Europe, I will do my best to safeguard a strong position for the private sector in space. I will also closely monitor the Commission’s actions in the field of the dissemination of EO data on platforms. However, the most important contribution that I can make is staying in touch with my constituency about space and encourage other politicians to do so as well. I’ve got space under my skin!

Short Biography
Cora van Nieuwenhuizen MEP (1963) was elected to the European Parliament in 2014 on behalf of the Dutch liberal party VVD. She is a member of the parliamentary committees ECON (Economic and Monetary Affairs) and ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy). Moreover, Ms. Van Nieuwenhuizen is the Vice-chair of Parliament’s Delegation for relations with India, a Member of the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) Panel of the European Parliament and a member of the Board of the Knowledge4Innovation Forum.
Apart from space policy, Ms. Van Nieuwenhuizen predominantly works on financial services regulation, FinTech and the Digital Single Market.

Thank you in advance for the elements of contribution to the Interview and for sharing your thoughts and comments with the EOmag readers

(05.12.2016) Space Imaging Middle East (SIME) and Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) have joined forces to provide industry leading Maritime Monitoring services to end users in, and around the Arabian Gulf. The combination of 20 years operational experience and unmatched local expertise will be a significant contribution to Maritime Domain Awareness in the region.

KSAT has provided operational oil spill and vessel detections services based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for 20 years and is the only provider in the world that has in-house capacity for planning, ordering, acquisition and processing of all commercial SAR satellites.

SIME has established itself as the most trusted imagery provider in the Arabian Gulf region, consistently delivering customized, cutting-edge geospatial solutions and high-resolution satellite imagery products and services.

The Near-real time aspect will be an important part of the joint service offering to the region, as will also the access to a truly unique portfolio of satellite data sources which will provide users in the region with the best available options.

“We are excited to announce this new partnership agreement with KSAT”, said Mohamad El Kadi, Managing Director of SIME. “We strongly believe that our combined expertise will result in the delivery of highly accurate geospatial intelligence which, given the high maritime traffic density in the region, will greatly improve the early detection of possible anomalies.“

“We are very happy about the signing of this partnership agreement with SIME, being a renowned organization that we have known for many years, and a highly valued provider of best available optical imagery and services. For us, the agreement also signifies an enhancement of our presence in the region.

Our combined service offering represents unmatched maritime domain awareness for early detection of oil spills and vessel-borne risks. Operational delivery of actionable information together with an increased coverage frequency, will have significant impact on oil spill preparedness and response as well as maritime security in the region in the years to come” says KSAT CEO Rolf Skatteboe.

For further information, please contact:
Rasha Hammad, Marketing Coordinator, SIME.
rasha@spaceimagingme.com
Telephone: +9714 2661799
Marte Indregard, Vice President of Energy, Environment and Security, KSAT.
Marte.indregard@ksat.no
Telephone: +47 48196720.

Space Imaging Middle East (SIME), is the leading geospatial and GIS solutions provider in the region. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in the business hub of the Middle East, Dubai, SIME has established itself as the first and leading commercial high-resolution satellite imagery provider in the Middle East.
http://www.spaceimagingme.com/

KSAT, Kongsberg Satellite Services, is a world-leading provider of ground station services for polar orbiting satellites from a uniquely located global ground network, and provides advanced maritime monitoring services with rapid delivery based on multiple satellite missions from its headquarters in Tromsø.
www.ksat.no

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Organised by the National Observatory of Athens, GEO-CRADLE Project Coordinator and kindly hosted by the State Hydrometeorological Service of the Republic of Moldova.

Presentations: GEO-CRADLE contribution towards inventorying of capacities and user needs, gap analysis, maturity indicators and priorities, addressing regional challenges (in the fields of adaptation to climate change, improved food security and water extremes management, better access to raw materials and energy) and implementing GEOSS & Copernicus, by Ms Alexia Tsouni, GEO-CRADLE Project Coordination Team

Presentation of the GEO-CRADLE survey of the regional Earth Observation (EO) capacities, by Ms Alexia Tsouni, GEO-CRADLE Project Coordination Team

Read the AGENDA

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(CAMBRIDGE, ON, Nov 2, 2016) – exactEarth Ltd. (TSX: XCT), the leading provider of Satellite AIS data services, announces that it has been awarded a four-year $2.7 million (including taxes) contract by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) to provide AIS data processing services for the Canadian Department of National Defence’s (DND) Polar Epsilon 2 (PE2) project. The PE2 project is a national initiative that will combine radar and AIS data from the RADARSAT Constellation Mission to provide enhanced maritime domain awareness that will identify, detect and track vessels in Canada’s maritime approaches and support Canadian Armed Forces at home and abroad.

Under terms of the contract, exactEarth will provide services to establish, test and validate the AIS processing service in accordance with the PE2 project requirements, which will then be followed by two years of service operations.

“We are pleased to have been selected by MDA for the PE2 project. This contract win is the result of a competitive bidding process where our industry-leading satellite AIS data processing detection technology has once again been recognized for its performance,” said Peter Mabson, CEO of exactEarth. This is a separate agreement from our existing contract with the Government of Canada, and we look forward to expanding the services that we provide to them.”

The PE2 project is part of the Canadian Government’s effort to maintain and expand the country’s access to a domestic source of space-based Earth observation data. According to the Department of National Defence, the Polar Epsilon 2 will use imagery from the three-satellite RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) to deliver advanced surveillance capabilities for domestic and global Canadian Armed Forces operations. The RCM satellites are scheduled for launch in 2018.

For more information on the Polar Epsilon 2 Project, see

About exactEarth Ltd.
exactEarth is a leading provider of global maritime vessel data for ship tracking and maritime situational awareness solutions. Since its establishment in 2009, exactEarth has pioneered a powerful new method of maritime surveillance called Satellite-AIS (“S-AIS”) and has delivered to its clients a view of maritime behaviours across all regions of the world’s oceans unrestricted by terrestrial limitations. exactEarth has deployed an operational data processing supply chain involving a constellation of satellites, receiving ground stations, patented decoding algorithms and advanced “big data” processing and distribution facilities. This ground-breaking system provides a comprehensive picture of the location of AIS equipped maritime vessels throughout the world and allows exactEarth to deliver data and information services characterized by high performance, reliability, security and simplicity to large international markets. For more information, visit exactearth.com.

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(11/22/2016) Following the 2016 Copernicus Masters competition, GEOMATRIX UAB was selected for the first Copernicus Accelerator Bootcamp event along with the other 40 SMEs developing innovative Gallileo/ Copernicus products and services.

The Bootcamp event took place in Madrid during 24-25 October 2016 organised by the European Commission and the European Space Agency. Personal business coaching programme, funded by the European Commission, will facilitate innovative space applications and products submitted to the 2016 Copernicus Masters competition.

The Copernicus Accelerator personal coaching program will last for 8 months during 2017. GEOMATRIX UAB brought up a concept of innovative Sentilels-based Farmland Monitoring Service primarily targeting the Eastern European medium-size traditional farms and aiming to offer a low-cost operational “smart farming” solution currently under development as a plug-in component to an open source farmOS.org information service.

Following the Copernicus Accelerator Bootcamp event in Madrid, GEOMATRIX UAB finalised the H2020 SME Instrument Phase-1 application for Farmland Monitoring Service feasibility study and business deelopment plan. If successful, this project will use professional coaching offered by Copernicus Accelerator to develop a solid busines development and service implementation plan for it’s Farmland Monitoring Service.

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The NextGEOSS project has been selected by the European Commission to provide the European hub for EO data distribution. NextGEOSS (Next Generation GEOSS for Business & Innovation) will be the European contribution to the global system being put in place by GEO, providing access to a large number of data sources, including the Sentinel satellites, Copernicus core services and others. It will implement a federated data hub for access and exploitation of Earth Observation data, including tools for data-mining, discovery and exploitation. The NextGEOSS concept revolves around providing the data and resources to the users’ communities, together with Cloud resources, seamlessly connected to provide an integrated ecosystem for supporting applications.

SUMMARY

Running from the end of 2016 until mid 2020, NextGEOSS provides a streamlined, European hub for Earth Observation data discovery and retrieval, catering for European institutions as well as private sector needs in terms of Earth Observation data, ICT and services. It will engage global communities of data providers and GEOSS users, promoting pilot activities towards innovative GEOSS powered applications using GEOSS.

BACKGROUND

Earth Observation (EO) from satellites produce vast amounts of data and is playing an increasingly important role as a regular and reliable high-quality data source for scientific, public sector and commercial activities. However, the unprecedented large amount of data available for research and operational use is creating new challenges to GEOSS.

The resulting explosive growth of data poses far-reaching dilemmas regarding the fragmentation of data infrastructures at the international level. The time is for expanding the operational capability of global monitoring from space, and this opens a unique opportunity to build sustainable hubs that support user services exploiting archived and newly acquired EO derived datasets. The new data scientists, universities and research institutions, as well as the private commercial sector and value adding institutions in general, now expect easy access to EO data sources and tools enabling efficient exploitation of multidisciplinary data for advancing research, developing value-added products and contrive downstream services.

SOLUTION

In order to support the creation and deployment of EO-based innovative research activities and commercial services, the project will rely on three main pillars: engaging communities, delivering technological developments and advocating the use of GEOSS.

Engaging Communities: NextGEOSS has a focus on engaging a strong community of not only of providers of Earth Observation data, but also of current and potential system users. It will actively involve the main operational actors from the Land Monitoring, Marine Environment Monitoring and Security Copernicus services, the lead institutions for the Copernicus Processing and Archiving Centres for Sentinel satellites, an ESA Data Hub, the Global Atmosphere Watch, as well commercial providers of satellite imagery. It will provide a framework to ease the discovery and retrieval of this data (satellite-based remote sensing and in situ measurements) using best practices for search services, including standardized and harmonized access to the metadata and data coming from earth observation providers worldwide. Through the promotion of pilot activities, NextGEOSS will directly engage researchers and developers in creating new applications and services, by providing them with specific tools and scalable Cloud appliances, covering their user requirements.

Technological Concept and Approach: NextGEOSS will facilitate the connectivity to the European and global data centres with new discovery and processing methods. It exploits the latest advances in EO data management, leveraging Web and Cloud technologies, offering seamless access to all the relevant data repositories, as well as providing efficient operations for search, retrieval, processing/re-processing, visualization, analysis and combination of products from federated data sources, all this delivered on user demand, as a Service. NextGEOSS will create a data hub that demonstrates the potential of new advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to help develop and deploy new GEOSS powered applications, and strengthen existing ones with additional data access and tools, therefore creating a solid foundation for capacity building through community platforms. NextGEOSS will deploy new data exploitation capabilities brought by Cloud technologies that automate and ease the access and processing of data, and support scaling up the storage and processing capabilities without the cost rocketing. It will provide virtualized work environments and the necessary interfaces to leverage the storage and computing resources of private and commercial providers. NextGEOSS will also support the optimization of the connectivity between the data centers involved in multi-stakeholder operations.

Advocating the Use of GEOSS: In addition to participating in international Conferences and Workshops, NextGEOSS will advocate the use of GEOSS by organising a number of regular events, including annual high-profile summits taking place in Geneva. The NextGEOSS Summit will gather worldwide stakeholders in Earth Observation data provision and services, relying on several of the project’s partners and recognised international experts for significant project and generic GEOSS relevant announcements, as well as for showcasing the project’s achievements. Intertwined with the annual summit, the NextGEOSS Online Courses and Learning Kit will support the adoption of GEOSS technologies, through worldwide web-based events, supported by dedicated learning material focused on empowering communities to use GEOSS data sources.

The NextGEOSS project exploits the latest advances in scientific data management in leveraging Web and Cloud technologies, offering easy and seamless access to all relevant data repositories as well as efficient operations (search, retrieval, processing/re-processing, visualization and analysis), for example to extract and distribute single parameters, or to combine products on user demand from federated infrastructures. NextGEOSS will create a data hub that demonstrates the potential of new advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to help develop and deploy new services requiring a wide variety of data sources and creating a solid foundation for capacity building through GEOSS community platforms.

TEAM

The NextGEOSS consortium is composed of 27 institutions in total, including leading European companies and institutions, active in many GEO-related activities and many other European, ESA and international projects. The consortium covers 13 European countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The Project Coordinator is DEIMOS Engenharia and includes the participation of the German Space Agency (DLR), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the Open Geospatial Consortium(OGC) and the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC), among others.

For more information, visit

(Munich, 16/11/16) European Space Imaging (EUSI) completed the 2015 Controls with Remote Sensing (CwRS) program for the European Commission (EC) with 100 % success rate. The Munich-based company collected and supplied very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery over nearly half a million square kilometers and demonstrated again its capacity and reliability as Europe’s leading VHR data provider.

Since 2003, EUSI has been the major provider of VHR satellite data to the European Commission’s Controls with Remote Sensing (CwRS) program to control agricultural subsidies granted under the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The CwRS program requires the timely and reliable provision of high resolution and high quality imagery over control zones in Europe.

In 2015, the demand under the new CAP has significantly grown by more than 40% reaching 497,000 km² spread over 952 control sites. More than half of the sites were collected within 14 days of the window opening and about one third within 7 days. All collections were made accessing the DigitalGlobe constellation of satellites (WorldView-1, WorldView-2, WorldView-3 and GeoEye-1) and in close cooperation with DigitalGlobe.

“With the growing number of areas to be covered and the ever demanding specifications we are extremely proud to continually achieve 100% success in this challenging and important campaign. Through leveraging our global team, between European Space Imaging and DigitalGlobe, our staff worked around the clock to achieve this goal.” says Adrian Zevenbergen, Managing Director of European Space Imaging.

European Space Imaging has the benefit of operating their own ground station which, in combination with direct satellite tasking and taking real-time weather conditions into account, leads to the speedy delivery of data for distribution to European Union Member State administrations.

In 2016, the demand for VHR imagery is expected to grow further to accommodate the requirements of the CAP of the European Union. European Space Imaging is looking forward to continuing its role as dependable imagery partner and to supporting the EU Commission and EU Member States with data supply into the future.

About CwRS

Since 1993, the European Commission (EC) has promoted the use of “Controls with Remote Sensing” (CwRS) as a system to control agricultural subsidies granted under the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy. Following the real time evaluation in 2003 and the successful operational application since 2004, the EC’s Joint Research Centre (Director General (DG) JRC), in agreement with DG AGRI, provides VHR satellite remote sensing data to the EU Member States (MS) administrations for their CwRS area-based subsidies.

Since 2010, VHR Imagery acquired under the CwRS campaign has also been used for the quality assessment of the Land Parcel Identification System – which is the main geo-database in the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS – the main administration tool for managing of farmers’ applications).

The DG JRC provides technical guidance regarding the CwRS strategy as well as managing the image acquisition, ordering and communication with the MS administrations and image providers. Also, in close cooperation with the MS, it supports the definition of the imagery required. Satellite imagery is acquired through third party suppliers selected by the DG JRC like European Space Imaging who has been a key third party imagery supplier to these campaigns since the programs’ inception.

About European Space Imaging
European Space Imaging (EUSI) is a leading supplier of global very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery, direct satellite tasking and derived services to customers in Europe, North Africa and CIS countries. They offer customers access to the highest resolution imagery (50-30 cm) from the largest constellation of sub-meter satellites and to the most extensive worldwide VHR data archive. With a reputation for expert and personalized customer service they have been providing tailored VHR imagery solutions to meet their customers’ diverse project requirements since 2002.For more information, visit www.euspaceimaging.com.

For more information please contact:
Penelope Richardson, Marketing Manager
European Space Imaging
Arnulfstrasse 199, Munich 80634
Tel: +49 (0) 89 1301420
Fax: +49 (0) 89 13014222
marketing@euspaceimaging.com
www.euspaceimaging.com
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(Munich, October 31, 2016) GAF AG is pleased to announce the award of a contract to support the Ministry of Mines and Industry in Niamey in establishing a new computerised mining cadastre and registry system in Niger.

The overall project objective is to improve governance in the mining sector by establishing a modern, web-based system for granting and managing mineral rights. The efficient, transparent, and reliable administration of such titles is a key factor in increasing growth and investment in the mining sector in Niger.

In practical terms, the project aims to:

  • Improve the performance and transparency of mineral rights management, in accordance with the Mining Code and its implementation regulations as well as other legislation and regulations in Niger.
  • Carry out the design, architectural specification and implementation of a centralised database for the mining cadastre.
  • Provide effective and user-friendly software for managing the cadastral information.
  • Provide capacity building with regard to the management of mineral rights.

The rollout of the eMC+ cadastre solution will increase the institutional capacity and efficiency of the ministry by providing comprehensive mineral tenure management. The contract has a duration of four months and is embedded in the “PROJET D’APPUI A LA COMPETITIVITE ET A LA CROISSANCE (PRACC)”, which is being funded by the World Bank (IDA). GAF has more than 20 years of worldwide experience in the institutional and technical establishment and reorganisation of mining cadastre authorities. This includes the provision of associated consultancy services and customised software solutions.

About eMC+

eMC+ is GAF’s framework of choice for providing mining cadastre authorities worldwide with a complete package of services for the management of mineral titles. The software platform is web-based and its responsive design supports a wide variety of devices, including mobile appliances. It is based on FOSS (free and open-source software), which ensures that no additional costs are incurred for third party licenses and associated maintenance. Thus, the total cost of ownership is fully transparent and there is no vendor lock-in.

About GAF

GAF AG is a leading solutions-provider with an international reputation for the skilled provision of data, products and services in the fields of geo-information, spatial IT and consulting for private and public clients. Over the past 30 years, the company has been active in more than 1000 projects in over 100 countries throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The company is part of the Telespazio Group, which belongs to Leonardo and Thales, two European technology leaders. GAF is currently performing mining governance and consulting projects in Burkina Faso, Morocco, Sudan, Gabon, Malawi, Mongolia, and Tajikistan.

To obtain more information, please contact:
GAF AG
Daniela Miller
Arnulfstr.199, 80634 Munich
Tel. +49 89 12 15 28-0
Fax. +49 89 12 15 28-79
info@gaf.de | https://emcplus.gaf.de
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An important task for Geocento in acting as an independent provider of satellite imagery has been in helping users to navigate some of the complexities of ordering imagery. The good news is that competition within the market is putting pressure on suppliers to make ordering and access much easier, and the benefits of this are starting to be seen, but in the meantime, it is worthwhile explaining some of the requirements that must be addressed by you, as a user, particularly in relation to the more traditional suppliers. Here are some of the key ones:

Being ready to provide your identity and affiliation. If you are a new client coming into the market for the first time, then it is necessary to provide your affiliation and contact details including location. This is formally required in order to ensure that there are no export controls to your country, to ensure that you have the appropriate license for your type of organisation, and to make sure that there are reselling rights for your location.

Being able to specify what you want to use the imagery for. Experienced users may know exactly what they want and be able to specify this very quickly, understanding which satellites they would like to use. For them, Geocento’s EarthImages Pro offers real flexibility in terms of image planning, specification of imaging configurations, etc. Others have simple requirements in terms of obtaining a recent cloud-free image of an area of interest and so can use our simpler EarthImages platform. Many clients, however, have sophisticated requirements but they do not have the time or confidence to identify the most appropriate imagery themselves. In these cases, by describing their application, Geocento can customise a plan to meet the client’ needs, making use of their supplier networks and their impartiality as an independent broker and helping with other requirements, such as providing sample imagery.

Understanding license conditions. If you simply want to use the imagery for your own purposes, then the license is normally straightforward. If you want to convert the imagery into other geospatial products and sell these on, or you wish to share the imagery with other organisations, then it is important to make sure that the license is able to support this. Some suppliers are much more flexible than others, but all suppliers support a range of different user cases through different licensing options. However, do bear in mind that licenses place a restriction of what can be done with the imagery.

Understanding impacts on pricing. As you would expect, higher resolution imagery is more expensive than coarser resolution imagery per sq km, but pricing is also dependent on a number of other factors such as the type of license (whether you are from an academic institution for example), urgency of the image order, number of users to be included in the license and how “old” the imagery is (particularly whether it is “new” imagery or existing imagery). Geocento’s EarthImage platform accounts for these various pricing rules in the ordering tool, and so take care of this complexity.

Being aware of how quickly imagery can be acquired and delivered. If you need the imagery urgently, then it is important to specify the appropriate options in the order, recognise that there is extra cost, and also take into consideration that even emergency orders are subject to constraints on how quickly the satellite can be tasked to collect more imagery, how long it takes to process the data, whether there are conflicts with other users and whether the satellite imaging capacity is available. Some suppliers are moving the paradigm towards routine data ordering and access so that there is less reliance on on-demand tasking which is time consuming and complex. If your needs are for imagery acquired at short notice, the best idea is to plan for this in advance so that arrangements are established in advance of needing the imagery rather than at the time of ordering, and we can help with this.

Being prepared for the impact of cloud. Cloud is always an issue for visible imagery, unless you are interested in a very dry region of the Earth, or you are prepared to accept imagery that is not “fresh”. There are alternatives, though. You can order radar imagery that “sees” through cloud (as well as day and night), or you could “look” from under the clouds, by ordering airborne imagery such as from drones, if either is compatible with your application. However, even cloud is going to become a lesser problem for visible imagery as the much increased temporal sampling of the new satellite constellations provide more opportunities to “catch” cloud-free moments in the day. We can keep you informed as these new capabilities become available.

Our image ordering platform, EarthImages, takes account of these requirements and allows the information to be provided at the time of ordering, and we fully expect the process to become simplified as competition starts to be felt across the market. In the meantime, we are here to help contact us to start the ball rolling.

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On the occasion of the visit of a Ukrainian delegation to Elecnor Deimos facilities in Spain last week, the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) and Elecnor Deimos signed a Memorandum of Understanding intended to promote cooperation in space projects. The Ukrainian delegation, including representatives from SSAU, the company Yuzhnoye SDO and the State Foreign Trade Enterprise (STE), was led by the Deputy Chairman of SSAU, Mr. Volodymyr Mikheiev.

SSAU and Deimos collaboration will focus on Earth Observation space and ground systems, as well as on the exploitation of remote sensing data and the development of space-based applications. Additionally, other fields of cooperation have been identified in the areas of launch systems, space situational awareness, satellite navigation and communications, and applied research.

The main competences of the State Space Agency of Ukraine include the development of state policy concepts in the sphere of research, peaceful uses of space and national security; organization and development of space activities in Ukraine and under its jurisdiction abroad; contributing to state national security and defense capability; and organization and development of Ukraine’s cooperation with other states and international space organizations.

More information about SSAU can be found at their official website
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