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The Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre recently signed an agreement with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs to become a Regional Support Office of the UN-SPIDER programme. For three decades ADPC has been devoting efforts to provide technical advisory support to countries in Asia and Asia Pacific in the topics of disaster risk reduction, preparedness, disaster response and recovery.

Established in 1986, ADPC is as an independent regional organization. It works in a number of countries in the Asia region including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi-Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. With headquarters located in Bangkok, Thailand, ADPC has country offices in Bangladesh and Myanmar. ADPC’s well-established networks with government line agencies and strong partnerships with regional organizations and development agencies provide the foundation for its work.

ADPC is a strong partner in Asia in the context of capacity building, offering a variety of training courses at the national and regional levels on an annual basis on many topics related to disaster risk management and climate change.

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The European Commission is working on the 2018-2020 Work Programme for Horizon 2020 – SPACE, as well as is undergoing public consultation on a Space Strategy for Europe.

The European Science Foundation’s (ESF) European Space Sciences Committee (ESSC) has issued recommendations and inputs to these consultation processes.

For H2020 SPACE programme, the recommendations include the exploitation of space data, the use of “CubeSat” miniaturised satellites and the integration of ground-based and space-based research, as well as health research in space, gravitational waves research, solar system exploration, heliophysics and space weather. Space surveillance and tracking and the Copernicus and Sentinel programmes are also covered.

As it comes to the European Space Strategy, the Committee highlighted the relevance of space sciences for European citizens in the areas of security, environment, health and engineering. It also underlined the strategic role that space sciences can play in European technology development, innovation and industrial leadership.

The detailed information can be found under: www.esf.org/space

The European Space Sciences Committee (ESSC) of the European Science Foundation is an independent committee that provides expert advice to European and national research funding and research performing organisations that support space sciences in Europe.

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TERRASIGNA representatives participated in the 2016 GEO Workshop for European projects on Earth observation that took place between 31st of May and 2nd of June in Berlin. The event was jointly organized by the European Commission, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany, and the Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science.

Our delegation presented the C-Land mobile application, developed by TERRASIGNA under MYGEOSS initiative of the European Commission for development of innovative apps in the environmental and social domains. C-Land addresses the need for informing citizens and non-expert users on the changes occurring on European level on land cover, at different spatial and temporal scales. Several case studies are included, such as: draining lakes from river floodplain, coastal specific processes, the impact of wind farms on the natural environment, reed fire detection in wetlands, forest extension in Europe on decadal scales and many others. Datasets are coming from open data domains and they are covering different types of processing level, from raw satellite imagery (further processed in-house by TERRASIGNA) to synthesis products offered by various European institutions.

The dynamics of these events are presented in an interactive and user-friendly manner, as to provide maximum level of understanding with minimum effort from user’s point of view.

The application can be use on Android mobile phones and tablets and can be downloaded here

space4environment is part of an international consortium led by IGN-FI that has been awarded a JRC framework contract for the independent validation and accuracy assessment of global land cover and land cover change mapping products.

This current framework on hot spot monitoring aims at instituting a complementary service to the Copernicus Global Land Service adding more detailed and localized thematic land information. The initial focus of the products is on protected areas in Africa.

Apart from the thematic validation in which all partners participate, space4environment is specifically responsible for controlling the logical consistency of the data.

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The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Space Agency (ESA) brought together the main private industries and public institutions in the downstream and the space sectors to discuss the “Innovation Drivers in Downstream Space Activities.” – See more at: http://www.rheagroup.com/downstream-space-activities-play-major-role-market-growth/#sthash.Ig360ANJ.dpuf

The workshop was an excellent opportunity to explore the full range of initiatives, including innovation governance models and policy measures that could contribute to the growth of the space economy. As innovation can be triggered by many factors, participants examined the type of measures that can be used to track innovation and its impact on the creation of new applications.

A special interest was given to the role of satellite information and big data in the creation of innovation in the changes in the traditional space applications’ paradigm. Representatives from public institutions such as ESA, the UK Space Agency, and private companies including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, CGI IT UK, and what3words, shared their experiences using satellite capacity and big data opportunities.

John Auburn, RHEA Group’s strategic advisor, presented the company’s strategy for downstream applications and innovation on the space-based technologies for creating new business opportunities for other industries, such as transport, infrastructure, agriculture, energy, and aviation. “RHEA Group is extending its product range to other sectors, and we are proud of our space industry background, that had facilitated our engineering contributions and growth to other areas.”

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After successful completion of in-orbit commissioning, ESA has handed over operations of the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite to EUMETSAT

During the five-month in orbit commission phase following the launch on 16 February, EUMETSAT supported ESA in the verification that the satellite, instruments and the prime functions of the ground segment perform as expected.

The first images from all three main instrument chains – the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument, the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer and the SAR Altimeter associated to the Microwave Radiometer – were produced jointly and released to the public in March and early April, already showing the high potential of the Sentinel-3 mission.

The formal handover concludes a transition phase during which EUMETSAT, under the supervision of ESOC, took an increasing role in operating the satellite, sending its first command on 29 April, performing its first manoeuvre on 2 June and carrying out routine operations since 4 July.

José Morales, Head of Copernicus Flight Operations Office at ESOC, ESA’s Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt said: “After almost five months of intense work implementing the Launch and Early Orbit Phase, Commissioning and Calibration phases of Sentinel-3A, in parallel with the transition of operations responsibility to the EUMETSAT team working with us, it is now time to hand-over the ‘little baby’ to its final operator. The ESOC team will now concentrate on the preparation of its twin brother, Sentinel-3B, for the launch in 2017”.

Kevin Marston, EUMETSAT System Operations Manager said: “Thanks to the excellent cooperation with the ESOC teams, we are now ready to take over operations of the satellite and the Flight Operations Segment and to enter the operations ramp up phase during which we will start to deliver Sentinel-3 marine products to Copernicus users.”

The next milestone is to follow in autumn, when the Payload Data Ground Segment will be declared operational for an initial set of products, and its Marine component will be handed over to EUMETSAT. EUMETSAT will then deliver the Sentinel-3A marine mission on behalf of the European Union and in partnership with ESA.

The operations ramp-up phase will continue into spring 2017 and EUMETSAT and ESA will continuously increase the portfolio of operational products, capitalising on the joint calibration and validation programme.

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Satellite remote sensing industry is evolving and anyone working in it needs to become familiar with the Data, information, Knowledge, Wisdom (DIKW) pyramid as this is one map, albeit simplistic, of the industry’s and our current journey.

Historically, satellite data was either sold as the original image or with a small amount of processing undertaken. If anyone wanted to do anything beyond basic processing, they had to do it themselves. However, things are changing.

According to a recent Euroconsult report, at least 3,600 small satellites will be launched over the next decade. The United Nations Office on Outer Space Affairs only lists 7,370 objects that have ever been launched into space, of which only 4,197 are still in orbit. We’re increasing the number of objects orbiting the Earth by 85% by smallsats alone, larger satellites will add even more.

The volume, variety and speed of this data collected by these satellites will present a step change not only in the type of applications companies will be able to offer, but, crucially, also in customer expectations – more and more they will be looking for added value.

One way of considering this is through the DIKW pyramid, which can be seen at the top of the blog, it’s credited to American organisational theorist Russell Ackoff in 1989, building on the ideas of Milan Zeleny two years earlier.

A simple summary of the pyramid starts with the collection of data which means nothing in its own right, it is simply data. Information is derived from data by asking the who, what, where, when and how questions. Knowledge is information to which expert skills and experience have been added to create more value – which is more profitable in a business context. Finally, wisdom is understanding what actions to take based on the knowledge you’ve gained.

Applying this to satellite remote sensing for agriculture, one example might be: data is the satellite data/image of the field. Information is knowing when the image was taken leading to where in the growing cycle the crop was. Knowledge is applying scientific algorithms to know the soil moisture, how much nutrients are in the soil or how much vegetation is present in various parts of the field. Wisdom is knowing what nutrients and fertilizers to apply, based on the knowledge gained, to improve crop yields.

A lot of Earth observation products are at the data or information level, with a few at the knowledge level, and even fewer at the wisdom level. Customers more and more want wisdom products, and they aren’t that interested in what was required to create them. When you add to this the additional types of geospatial information, e.g., optical and radar used together alongside airborne and in-field ground based measurements, the variety of open datasets and the new science and technological breakthroughs, things are going to look very different, very quickly.

We’d accept that the DIKW isn’t a perfect tool, nor a perfect representation of our industry, but it is simple, indicative and worth thinking about. We wrote about our intention to create products in an earlier blog. We’re a long way from the wisdom sector, but are hoping to be firmly within the knowledge sector and collaborating to create wisdom. It’s not easy and some companies will find it harder to do than others, but is going to be the future. How are you preparing?

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Sustainable agriculture, food production systems, safe food production as well as assisting farmers in decision making are the objectives of an innovative proposal submitted in the context of the program “Horizon 2020 – IoT-01-2016 on IoT Large Scale Pilots” by a group of international organizations and companies, including NEUROPUBLIC S.A.

The project “DEMETER – Building a Data-Driven Innovative and Sustainable European Agri-Food Sector through IoT” is about the development and implementation of large scale pilot actions of smart agriculture, aiming at implementing loT technologies in existing corporations and procedures in the agricultural sector, in various agri-food environments, production sectors, systems and types of agricultural holdings. In this context, two pilots will be designed and implemented in Greece:
(a) automated irrigation systems in bean farms (Kastoria and Prespes) and corn farms (Drama) and
(b) traceability of beef and pork meat products (BIKAS S.A., Imathia).

Besides NEUROPUBLIC, some of the Greek companies and organizations participating in the proposal are, among others, GAIA EPICHEIREIN, BIKAS S.A., as well as the Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).

The budget of the submitted proposal exceeds €37 million and is being coordinated by the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. This joint effort brings the best associates at European level together and aims to prove that an integrated approach based on Internet of Things technologies (IoT) can support sustainable agriculture and the food production systems, the production of safe food as well as the farmers in the decision making process.

NEUROPUBLIC S.A. (www.neuropublic.gr) is an innovative company specializing in the development of high demand integrated information systems and applications in Web and Cloud environment, that have been successfully in use for over 10 years by more than 800.000 end users in agriculture, local government and healthcare. A pilot Smart Agriculture program has been initiated recently, based on telemetric stations designed by the company itself (GAIA TRON).

In the context of DEMETER project, NEUROPUBLIC will use the network it has already developed with the telemetric stations designed by the company itself, for the implementation of smart agriculture services such as smart/automated irrigation services for the pilot of irrigated crops and traceability services for the pilot of meat traceability of the project.

GAIA EPICHEIREIN S.A. (www.c-gaia.gr) is the result of the strategic partnership between NEUROPUBLIC, Piraeus Bank and more than 70 Greek farmers’ associations. The company supports a web platform developed by NEUROPUBLIC, offering services and systems for Greek farmers and other members of the agri-food chain (agronomists, retailers and consumers), with 725.000 total active users and 2 million subscribers. The services it provides include tools for farm management, electronic commerce of agricultural products, automation of bureaucratic procedures, e-learning and information, networking, traceability and precision agriculture. In the context of DEMETER project, GAIA EPICHEIREIN provides the end users that will participate in the aforementioned pilot programs.

BIKAS S.A. (www.bikas.gr) with registered offices in Veroia, includes modern facilities for slaughter, cold storage and cutting beef and pork meat, as well as processing, packaging and transport/distribution of these products with certified procedures in accordance with EN ISO 22000, HACCP standard and under IFS certification audit. The company already uses a traceability system according to national and European regulations. In the context of DEMETER project, BIKAS S.A. has been selected from all over Greece, after thorough investigations, to participate in the pilot program for the improvement of the services provided to its clients, through specific IoT solutions (equipment and web applications for personal computers and mobiles), automating the procedure of meat traceability.

The Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS – - www.iccs.gr) was established in 1989 by the Ministry of Education in order to carry out research and development activities in various telecommunication-related sectors, information systems and relevant applications. ICCS is closely associated with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (SECE) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). It engages extensively in programs co-financed by European Union. Since 2000, it has taken part in 347 European innovative research projects (being a supervisor for 52 of them). For these activities it has been funded with more than €100 million by European Union. In the context of the DEMETER project, ICCS will be responsible for the integration and interaction of various heterogeneous technology solutions brought also by the project associates, as well as for the assurance of data interoperability and dissemination.

The assessment of the proposal is to be completed by the end of September.

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(01.07.2016) The Norwegian Minister for foreign Affairs, Mr. Børge Brende, witnessed the signing of an Implementing Agreement (IA) between KSAT and VENG SA (a CONAE owned company)Thursday, covering joint activities related to ground station development as well as satellite operations.

The KSAT Pole-to pole network will be augmented with this new ground station in Argentina. KSAT and VENG will establish a new satellite ground station in Terra del Fuego. The satellite ground station will host CONAE and KSAT antennas. Several important satellite programs will utilize the infrastructure to optimize satellite data reception and control.

In December 2015, the Norwegian Space Centre (NSC) signed a framework with NATIONAL COMMISSION ON SPACE ACTIVITIES OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC (CONAE) for developing space activities in areas of mutual interest. The current initiative is implemented as a direct consequence of this agreement.

KSAT president and CEO, Rolf Skatteboe, says he is pleased to have signed this agreement, which will allow KSAT and Argentina to work closer together. The new satellite ground station will be an important addition to KSAT global network. It will cost –efficiently be integrated in the world largest network for satellite operation and control.

In addition, local data reception from Argentinian radar satellite, combined with the KSAT multi-mission near real-time services for Maritime Situational Awareness, will enable unprecedented vessel detection services, supporting the battle against illegal fishery on a global scale.

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(June 2016) The Norwegian Space Center has awarded Kongsberg Spacetec AS a contract to demonstrate their lightning-fast SAR processor MEOS NRT-SAR.

Where traditional processors generate standardized products from pre-processed level-0 data, the MEOS NRT-SAR processes directly on the raw data stream as it is received from the satellite,saving several minutes in processing time. In addition, this processor can be tuned to generate optimized products for each specific end user or downstream application.

Under this new contract, Kongsberg Spacetec will put MEOS NRT-SAR into semi-operational use in parallel with the national Collaborative Ground Segment. The Norwegian Space Center will use the system to assess the benefits of faster processing, shorter delivery times and custom processing parameters for the national services and key users.

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