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This is the third year and the third winner of this now prestigious award is Deimos Imaging. This achievement was recognised by EARSC members in delivering the award to them this year.

Tell us a bit about the history of Deimos Imaging, how the Company was split from Deimos Space and how it has grown over the years?

Deimos Space was founded in 2001 by a group of engineers, we were 23 back then, with the idea of setting up a small, agile company dedicated to providing high-quality space engineering services.

After a few years of growth, in 2006 we decided to start Deimos Imaging as a spin-off, and expand into the growing satellite imagery market by acquiring and operating our own satellite, the Deimos-1.

When the satellite was launched, in 2009, we were around 20 people, and we managed to be successful enough in the satellite imagery market to convince our parent company, Elecnor, to invest into a second-generation satellite, Deimos-2. The satellite was launched in 2014, and by then we had doubled the size of the company to 50 people, and we were operating two control and processing centers in two separate facilities in Spain.

The next big step for Deimos Imaging was the acquisition by the Canadian UrtheCast Corp. in July 2015, which enabled us to keep growing steadily and which gave us a clear roadmap for the future. We have now more than 100 employees, and we plan to keep growing significantly in 2017.

Please tell us a bit more about what Deimos imaging does? What are the key markets that you address?

Deimos Imaging has grown over the years to become one of the world’s leading satellite imagery providers. We own and operate our Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 satellites with a 24/7 commercial service from our facilities in Spain and through a network of ground stations in Canada, Sweden and Norway.

The acquisition of Deimos Imaging by UrtheCast added significant value to the company, and we included in our portfolio two other unique data sources, both based on the International Space: a mid-resolution camera, Theia, and the first UHD color video camera in space, Iris.

Moreover, as a founding member of the PanGeo Alliance, we can provide quite a unique portfolio of EO data to a very broad range of customers.

After the acquisition by UrtheCast we have expanded beyond our traditional markets in Europe and Latin America, and we have now achieved a true worldwide commercial footprint.

What is your view on the evolution of online web services – what timescale will it occur over and will you embrace the change?

Deimos Imaging has a “traditional” business model for earth observation and we deliver the information through standard channels to our customers. Urthecast has a different approach based on a web platform and the customer can access the data through an API in a real time. This way of distributing the data is becoming more available nowadays and we really think this will be the key for the next generation of application of EO. It implies a faster and cheaper access to the services and it will allow more users to access the same data and in a different way. There market is changing and the evolution of online web services will happen very soon.

The PanGeo Alliance is the first global alliance of Earth Observation sensors operators. Could you briefly explain how customers benefit from a global network of resellers and a unified access point to new tasking and archive imagery?

The PanGeo Alliance, which we co-founded two years ago, has rapidly grown to eight member entities worldwide, in eight different countries.

As a member of the Alliance, we have access to an unprecedented fleet of EO sensors, which will be greatly expand in the coming years. Nowadays, the PanGeo Allliance includes 15 operational EO sensors, and it allows us to provide to our customers quite a unique portfolio of imagery of a wide resolution range (from 20 m to 75 cm/pixel), 4K full-color videos and AIS data.

For us, the Alliance also provides an additional global reseller network, which complements our existing channels.

But the key benefit for our customers is that we can act as a single access point for the whole portfolio, not just as a reseller, but as a true constellation campaign manager. We can combine the access to each member’s archive catalogue, and we can task the whole PanGeo fleet thanks to a multi-satellite mission planning and ordering system. This is like offering to your customers the control of a 15-satellite EO fleet.

What is your vision about the democratization of Earth Observation?

UrtheCast’s vision is what we call the “democratization” of Earth Observation.
This shall not be confused with a simple “free data” statement. We do believe that the price of the data is just a part of the equation. Quality, access, usability, continuity are among the other key factors you have to tackle in order to be really able to make a difference.

Our goal is to provide unhindered and near universal access of EO imagery and data. This has to be done at affordable price point, in formats and on platforms that do not require expertise, and within an eco-system that attracts third-party investment and innovation. We believe this would significantly broaden the utility of the EO data for organizations and individuals.

In order to achieve this goal, we are developing a complex end-to-end system which is composed both of space-based and ground-based assets. And this whole system is customer-driven, since we are basing all the requirements on the market needs we have identified in close relationship with our existing customer base.

We are currently developing two constellations of satellites, the 8-satellite UrtheDaily and the 16-satellite OptiSAR. The first system will provide complete daily coverage worldwide at 5m resolution, with very-high-quality imagery specifically designed for geoanalytics applications. The second system, composed of 8 pairs of very-high-resolution optical and SAR satellites, will complement UrtheDaily by providing a unique night/day, all-weather revisit capacity, with tens of observation opportunities per day on any given target.

In order to allow everyone to access and use this huge data stream, we have already developed and fielded a complex cloud-based infrastructure, the UrthePlatform, which will close the existing gap between the data and the users.

How you plan your vertically-integrated EO system (space base geospatial big data collection, processing, and information management system)?

UrtheCast is already structured as a vertically integrated EO system.
The upstream part is composed of the current sensors (Deimos-1, Deimos-2, Iris and Theia), and it will be complemented by our future constellations, UrtheDaily and OptiSAR. Our satellites and sensors already generate a huge amount of imagery, and the future constellations will definitely bring us in the realm of Big Data.

In order to download, move around, process and store this amount of imagery we need a significant ground infrastructure. This is why we developed our Midstream, which we call the UrthePipeline. This is already operational for the current generation of systems, but it has been really designed to cope with the future constellations.

The Downstream part of our strategy is covered by our UrthePlatform, which is a multi-sensor, multi-format searchable and query-able EO data distribution and exploitation system, fully cloud-based. The UrthePlatform is already operational, and it is already allowing a growing set of geoanalytics customers to work directly with the data on the cloud, without the need to download or move around huge amount of data.

The next logical step in the development of our vertically-integrated system will be to add more geoanalytical capabilities directly in our UrthePlatform.

Fabrizio Pirondini, CEO Deimos Imaging

Mr. Pirondini is co-founder and CEO of Deimos Imaging, a Spanish company part of the UrtheCast group, operating and marketing the Deimos-1 and Deimos-2 EO satellites. An Aerospace Engineer with almost 20 years of experience in the space sector, in his career he covered all facets of the Earth Observation value chain, encompassing technical aspects, business development, strategy and management. After an experience at the European Space Agency in Germany, in 2001 he co-founded Deimos Space, which is now one of Europe’s leading space companies. Until 2010, as Head of the Earth Observation Mission Analysis division at Deimos Space, he was responsible for the mission design and analysis of more than 20 Earth Observation missions. As CEO of Deimos Imaging since 2011, he led the expansion of the company into becoming one of the leading providers of satellite imagery. In 2014 he co-founded the PanGeo Alliance of EO satellite operators

Oil fire smoke billows across Iraq’s Mosul District in this dramatic imagery from UrtheCast’s Deimos-2 satellite, captured yesterday, Oct. 18.

The smoke covers part of the city Qayyarah, about 35 miles south of the city of Mosul, along the West Bank of the Tigris River. Mosul is the last stronghold of the extremist group ISIS in Iraq — and it’s here in Qayyarah where people flee to from Mosul, and where military forces are staged.

Also visible is a destroyed bridge that once crossed the Tigris River.

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EARSC is expanding its social media presence with its new LinkedIn page. Follow our page in order to get the latest news about the association, its projects and members.

Follow us also on Twitter are still administrating EARSC LinkedIn Group but it will be more focused on news for members while our page will be disseminating public information.

EARSC is also active on Twitter via two channels: @earsc for the generic news of the association and @EOPages more focused on companies and services.

To learn more on EARSC communication tools, read our editorial from April 2016 .

The European Space Agency (ESA) is backing a DHI and Proteus Geo project to advance satellite-derived bathymetry, reducing the need for costly physical surveys.

Obtaining bathymetry data – traditionally with the use of boats – is a costly and time-consuming process. In addition, access can be difficult or even dangerous in remote areas. Over the last three years, DHI has been working in partnership with Proteus Geo to make use of satellite imagery to produce a product that seeks to address traditional constraints. With this new project, we are seeking to develop an off-the-shelf service in collaboration with Digital Globe – a world leader in high quality and detailed satellite imagery.

A repository of satellite-derived bathymetry data

In many areas of the world, historic charts are the primary source of bathymetry information. Some of these charts are based on original lead line surveys from the 1800s which often excluded the very nearshore zone.

ESA has recently awarded Proteus Geo and DHI with a project to improve the efficiency of the data processing chain and encourage the wider use of this source of vital information by developing a repository of satellite-derived bathymetry data.

Creating satellite derived bathymetry involves the use of accurate high-resolution satellite imagery to create a dataset that reveals the water depth of both salt and fresh water coastlines.

‘The current project is based on many years of research and development within advanced satellite image based methods, that allows us to cost-effectively derive detailed information of the coastal waters. At DHI, we are very excited to bring our key knowledge into a very promising product offering.’ – Rasmus Borgstrøm, Managing Director of DHI GRAS

With ESA’s support, access to the Digital Globe imagery catalogue and the experience of Proteus Geo and DHI, the goal of mapping significant areas of the world’s coastal seas and oceans has begun.

Quick, consistent and affordable

As part of this project, we are developing an online data portal that will allow rapid access to bathymetry data to users around the world.

‘Bathymetry data is the first step in understanding any coastal site. Often, data is sparse, with limited knowledge on the provenance and accuracy, or in some locations, non-existent. Providing a repository of data that can be accessed off-the-shelf will enable that first step to be taken more quickly, improving projects in the coastal zone. ’ – Nick Elderfield, Managing Director of DHI UK

With high-resolution satellite imaging, data can be created quickly and consistently over large areas and provided for many applications, for example:

  • Port design and masterplanning
  • Marine spatial planning
  • Marine habitat mapping
  • Environmental impact studies
  • Tsunami modelling

More details will be announced at Ocean Business 2017 where DHI and Proteus Geo will be unveiling the product.

Want to know more?
Contact nje@dhigroup.com or rlb@dhigroup.com for more details.

Source

Built-up areas on the Earth have increased by 2.5 times since 1975. And yet, today 7.3 billion people live and work in only 7.6% of the global land mass. Nine out of the ten most populated urban centres are in Asia, while five out of the ten largest urban centres are in the United States. These are some of the numbers calculated by a new global database which tracks human presence on Earth.


Built-up areas on Earth have increased by 2.5 times since 1975. And yet, today 7.3 billion people live and work in only 7.6% of the global land mass. Nine out of the ten most populated urban centres are in Asia, while five out of the ten largest urban centres are in the United States. These are some of the numbers calculated by a new global database which tracks human presence on Earth, launched on 18 October 2016 by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III).

Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL)

While the growth of the global population is closely monitored by statistical offices, until now there has been little consistent, open and detailed information on the spatial distribution of people, and hardly any information on built-up areas with complete and global coverage. For the first time, the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) developed by the JRC with the support of the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) makes it possible to analyse in a consistent and detailed manner the development of built-up areas, population and settlements of the whole planet over the past 40 years.

The GHSL is the most complete, consistent, global, free and open dataset on human settlements from villages to megacities. The datasets are based on more than 12.4k billions of individual image data records collected by different satellite sensors in the past 40 years. It combines satellite imagery on built-up areas, green areas and night lights with census data on population.

The GHSL can be used to check where and how people live, to measure the size of built-up areas and map their growth of over time, to calculate the density of cities and to analyse how green or how exposed to disasters urban centres are. It also provides a practical tool for the monitoring of the implementation of international frameworks.

Built-up area increasing globally, strongest growth in low-income countries

The GHSL shows that over the past 40 years, built-up areas increased by about 2.5 times globally, while the global population increased by a factor of 1.8. The changes in population and built-up areas show major regional differences. The strongest growth can be observed in low income countries. For example, over the past 40 years, the population of Africa tripled and the built-up area quadrupled. During that same period, the population of Europe remained stable, while the built-up area doubled.

Much of the expansion in population and built-up areas has taken place in locations that are at risk to natural disasters. For example, the world urban population of coastal areas has doubled over the last 40 years, from 45 to 88 million people.

Most densely populated urban centres are in low-income countries

Today, most of the world’s population is living in agglomerations with a density greater than 1.500 people per square kilometre and with more than 50,000 inhabitants. The GHSL counts more than 13,000 of these urban centres from the data for the year 2015. The ten most populated urban centres in the world are Guangzhou/Donguan, Cairo, Jakarta, Tokyo, New Delhi, Kolkata, Dhaka, Shanghai, Mumbai and Manila. Thus, nine out of the ten most densely populated urban centres are in Asia and seven are in low-income countries.

Urban centres with biggest built-up area are in high-income countries

Los Angeles is the largest urban centre in the world, with its built-up area extending over 4 734 km2, followed by Tokyo, Jakarta, Guangzhou/Donguan, New York, Chicago, Johannesburg/Pretoria, Dallas, Miami and Osaka. Consequently, eight out of the ten largest urban centres are in high-income countries and five of them are in the United States.

The different growth trends in the different continents lead to an unequal distribution of built-up per capita globally, the built-up area per capita in urban clusters in Northern America being almost ten times that of Asia.

Vegetation in urban clusters increased by 38% in 25 years

Large regional and income inequalities are reported in accessing electricity, as observed from night light emissions of urban centres. At the same time, a relative decline of night light emissions can be observed in urban centres of high income countries, possibly related to the implementation of environmental protection and energy saving policies. According to the evidence collected by the GHSL, our urban centres, towns and suburbs are becoming greener: the average intensity of vegetation associated to built-up areas in the whole urban clusters of the planet has increased by 38% in the past 25 years.

Atlas of the Human Planet

The GHSL is the core baseline data supporting the first release of the “Atlas of the Human Planet,” an international collaborative effort within the Group of Earth Observation (GEO) Human Planet initiative. It aims to support the monitoring of the implementation of the post-2015 international frameworks: the UN Third Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III, 2016), the post-2015 framework on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (DRR).

European Commission’s Joint Research Centre experts presented the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) open data tools and the analytical findings included in the “Atlas of the Human Planet 2016” at the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, on 17 — 20 October 2016.

Source
©Materials provided by European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC).

The first Copernicus open data hackathon is taking place in Austria on the 4th and 5th November 2016 with 7500€ in prizes. We asked the organizers to tell us more about the Copernicus uptake situation in Austria and hackathons.

The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) is the national funding agency for industrial research and development in Austria. Additionally, FFG fulfills all the tasks of a national space agency. Working for FFG since almost 10 years, Thomas GEIST is in charge of Satellite Earth Observation and in particular of Copernicus. He will be part of the Jury during the Hackathon.

INITS is the biggest high-tech university business incubator in Austria. Eva AHR works with high-tech startups and projects at INITS and is organising the hackathon.

What are in your opinion the main challenges faced by Copernicus uptake in Europe?

Thomas Geist:
Copernicus is now up and running with four Sentinel satellites in place (and more to come in the next years) and operational services offering information products on a regular basis. Copernicus offers data and information under a free and open data policy and the programme is promising a continuity of services over a long time. These are fundamental elements for a sustainable use of Copernicus. However, there are still manifold challenges for a successful user uptake.

First of all, a prerequisite for the uptake is the safeguarding of access to Copernicus data and products in an easy and reliable manner. Secondly, the buildup of expertise among the multifaceted and partly fragmented (potential) stakeholder and user communities in public and private sector is of high importance. This is partly connected with access to suitable financing and funding mechanisms, but also to tailor-made training opportunities. Finally, a big challenge is still the lack of awareness that Copernicus exists and what can be done with the data, information and tools already available.

You see, there is a huge potential in terms of supporting Copernicus uptake. Therefore, the deployment of an effective user engagement strategy must have a high priority. The European Commission is starting to tackle this with the launch of a variety of initiatives, such as the set-up of a Copernicus support office, the Copernicus relays, the Copernicus academy network and the provision of information and training material.

Is there an „Austrian approach“ for User Uptake in Copernicus?

Thomas Geist:
Austria has to face the same challenges of raising awareness of Copernicus and stimulating user uptake as other countries. Therefore, a structured exchange of best practices between states and regions could help much and should be strengthened.

There are several elements of an „Austrian approach“. As a more top-down approach addressing the public sector on national and regional level, the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit), which has the political responsibility for Copernicus in Austria, has set up an inter-ministerial group for Copernicus. This body is involving all entities relevant for the use of Copernicus on national level, such as the Federal Environmental Agency or the Ministry of Interior Affairs.

For a couple of years, as a more bottom-up approach, FFG has tried to prepare the Austrian industry (mostly SMEs) and science community for Copernicus via the funding of collaborative R&D projects through the Austrian Space Applications Programme (ASAP). With the compulsory and active involvement of user groups in these collaborations a certain level of awareness could be accomplished among selected communities. As a next step the real uptake of Copernicus into business processes must be tackled, beyond showing the pure technical feasibility. Other elements to mention are for instance the establishment of a national access to Sentinel data, operated by ZAMG (= Austrian meteorological service) and the foundation of the Earth Observation Data Center (EODC) providing collaborative IT infrastructure for archiving, processing, and distributing EO data.

Next to the well-known instruments for promoting research, development and innovation, we think that a couple of unorthodox formats might help to unlock new user groups. One idea was the implementation of a Copernicus hackathon, and here with INiTS we have found the perfect partner.

Can you briefly describe the background of the initiative?

Eva Arh:
As the Copernicus data is made available in an open and free way, Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology and Austrian Research Promotion Agency saw a great chance to raise the awareness about the Copernicus open data by organizing a hackathon. The aim of the hackathon is to generate exciting ideas how Copernicus data can be used in valuable applications as well as promote the project as such. In order to create meaningful ideas and implement data into applications, we will have mixed teams that consist of developers, data scientists, geographers, physicists, entrepreneurs etc. If in other hackathons it is enough to have developers on board, we also need experts in the Earth observation to shed a light what these data mean. We at INITS, the biggest and most experienced high-tech incubator in Austria, have organized hackathons before and we know that such an event is very efficient way to educate attendees about the topic and simply generate a lot exciting use cases. Some of the ideas could turn into companies that we can support after the hackathon. Earth Observation Data Center is enabling the hackathon technically – they are already working with Copernicus data and have prepared them to an extent that attendees can create applications within 2 days.

Why is a hackathon the best tool to reach your aims?

Eva Arh:
Hackathon is an efficient way to generate different ideas and solutions within a very limited time frame. By gathering people with various skills and guiding them through the idea generation process, we make sure that we have teams where members complement each other in order to achieve something within 2 days. The diversity and friendly atmosphere also should contribute to the creativity. Exciting prizes are also crucial to generate interested. We will award the winning team with 1500 € as well some teams will get a chance to present developed solutions at future events or on related websites which serves as a great reference. Furthermore, our partner EODC will provide access for the winning team to supercomputers and complete datasets so that the team can continue to work on the idea.

How would you describe a hackathon to a five year old?

Eva Arh:
What is a hackathon? Building something together with others in a short time. Imagine that you and your friends compete about having the biggest castle out of Lego. You have 2 days to build it. You have 4 other friends working on your castle and the other 5 kids are working on their own castle. Your big brother will help you in case you need some support.

What do you expect?

Eva Arh:
We expect motivated attendees that are ready to explore the data and work hard to have something that can be demonstrated and shows the potential of this open data. We know that this is challenging but therefore we will have good food and mentors that can support the teams. We also hope to attract people that have not been involved in the topic until now so that we grow the community of people and companies that deal with the Copernicus data. To summarize, we expect lots of fun, hard work and exciting use cases of the Copernicus data!

Now in its 9th edition, Satellite-Based Earth Observation presents an assessment of the current EO value chain and provides forecasts as to how this may evolve leading to 2025. This report presents Euroconsult’s understanding of the various factors that will drive/inhibit the growth in demand for EO satellites and solutions.

In total, eight regional markets are considered individually, along with eight different vertical markets which EO solutions may address. Consolidated figures from this individual analysis provide the high-level data displaying past trends and upcoming demand for EO solutions.

New in this edition: We have introduced valuation and forecasting of the value-added services market, including historical (2006-2015) and forecast (2016-2025) data. The value-added services market reached $3.2 billion in 2015 and is growing at a faster rate than the data market alone (11% 5-year CAGR).

Key markets for value-adding services do not mirror those for commercial data sales. Defense, while representing 61% of the commercial data market, represents only 15% of the VAS market; conversely, infrastructure projects (such as cartography, cadaster, etc.) are only 10% of the commercial data market, but 33% of the value-added market. The reasoning for this is relatively straightforward; defense end-users purchase data with much value-added analytics performed in-house.

On the other hand, lower-cost, coarser resolution and geolocation accuracy data can be leveraged with value-adding to form higher value products and services. This approach is expected in emerging location-based applications – the focus of upcoming satellite constellations. While the data may be lower-cost, it will be able to build applications based on high frequency change detection with the focus on the product or service delivery over purely data sales.

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Horizon 2020’s Societal Challenge “Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials” Information Day & Brokerage event took place in Brussels on 14 September 2016.

The sessions included presentations and discussions on:

  • Policy framework of Societal Challenge “Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency & Raw Materials”
  • Cross-cutting issues & best practices in writing proposals
  • Open data
  • Questions & Answers

The presentations and video recordings from the sessions are now available on the European Commission’s website. The hashtag from the event #H2020SC5 can be also followed to see the participants contributions from the event in social media.

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Space-related R&D

In autumn 2016, the calls for proposals under Horizon 2020’s Societal Challenge “Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials” will be launched with deadlines of proposal submissions in February and March 2017.

Among other, the calls will include a topic directly targeted at the EO solutions.

The Fourth EU-Africa Summit of 2-3 April 2014 agreed on a roadmap for 2014-2017 including actions specifically targeted at delivering Earth observation services in priority domains for Africa such as food security.

This topic aims to contribute to this roadmap by providing food supply projection and agricultural risk assessment for Africa.

Funded projects should lead to substantially increase the use of Earth observing capabilities and supporting application systems to produce timely, objective, reliable, and transparent crop and livestock production projection at the national and regional level for the African continent. Deadline for proposals submission is 14 February 2017 at 17:00 (Brussels time).

The list of all planned topics under H2020 Societal Challenge call is available on the European Comission’s website.

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The overall objective of this workshop was to explore Research and Innovation (R&I) actions needed for the development of a dynamic Earth observation (EO) market in Europe in relation to the Copernicus and GEO initiatives (Group on Earth Observations).

The three main themes of the workshop were the following:

  • To characterise the current EO market in Europe and globally and its future trends (new EO services and products);
  • To identify R&I actions in support to the delivery of new EO services and products g. within Copernicus and GEO (Group on Earth Observations), and definition of appropriate measures to accelerate their uptake by industry;
  • To elaborate a mechanism for consulting/involving the European commercial sector towards GEO and Copernicus taking into account the dialogue already initiated between the two programmes.

For more details, please consult this page