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With immediate effect, VCS Aktiengesellschaft has established an office in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.

In doing so, the specialised company for systems and software in the fields of space science, earth observation, navigation and telecommunication strengthens its presence in the Southern German area. The new, additional, premises will provide a prime vantage point for the expansion of VCS space activities.

“Oberpfaffenhofen is a major location for the German space industry. Two important ground segment sites, the Columbus Control Centre for the International Space Station and the European Galileo Ground Control Segment are situated there. Both already feature deployments of VCS solutions and so an obvious target for us to strengthen our on-site presence for VCS customers and Partners”, says Dr. Horst Wulf, Director of the VCS SpaceCom Division.

As an important partner of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for the Columbus Control Centre, VCS Aktiengesellschaft has operated in Oberpfaffenhofen for many years. VCS solutions are providing monitoring, control and configuration functions for the world-wide distributed Columbus ground segment and for several elements of the Galileo ground segment. With future long-time operations of Galileo, and further space activities planned nearby, there is increased demand for a permanent VCS presence in Oberpfaffenhofen in order to offer the full range of VCS services. This represents a consistent step towards improved customer care in the Southern German area.

The new office is situated in the area of the “Sonderflughafen Oberpfaffenhofen”, initially in Buliding No. 334. However, the office will move into the nearby “Aerospace & Technology Center”, as soon as the construction work is completed. The technology centre, specifically for companies in the fields of aerospace, satellite navigation and automotive engineering, will provide a stimulating business environment for all companies involved.

Since 1981, VCS Aktiengesellschaft has operated successfully as an experienced and reliable partner in the high-tech niche markets of Space Systems, and Media Broadcasting. VCS has established a leading position as a highly-skilled expert for mission-critical software and now has more than 150 customers in over 60 countries. Companies, space agencies and public authorities around the world rely on solutions from VCS. The company employs approx. 158 people, with offices in Bochum, Darmstadt and Oberpfaffenhofen and is a wholly-owned subsidary of SciSys plc.

Contact:

VCS Aktiengesellschaft
Mr. Abdelwaheb Amara
Postfach 1203
82231 Weßling
Germany
Phone +49 (0)8153 / 90 87 87 0
Fax +49 (0)8153 / 90 87 87 5

VCS Aktiengesellschaft
Mr. Christoph Wichmann
Borgmannstraße 2
44894 Bochum
Germany
Phone +49 (0)234 9258-115
Fax +49 (0)234 9258-8-115

Download: Press Release as a PDF Document
VCS_Meldung_Oberpfaffenhofen_E.pdf

Telespazio, a Finmeccanica/Thales company, has acquired a 40% stake in the French company Novacom Services SA, which is 60%-owned by Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), a subsidiary of the French space agency CNES.

Based in Toulouse, Novacom specialises in innovative navigation and localisation services that integrate both ground and satellite technologies. It develops applications in the sector of road, maritime and rail transport (monitoring of dangerous goods, localisation of fleets, etc), for emergency and rescue services, and in the environmental field (monitoring of ocean currents and migration patterns, etc).

The acquisition is part of Telespazio’s drive to develop skills and know-how in the sector of satellite navigation and localisation services, with the aim of taking a leading role in seizing the business opportunities that are expected to open up in the next few years with the launch of the European Galileo programme.

In addition, the deal increases Telespazio’s presence in France, where it operates via Telespazio France and already controls Fileas, a company specialising in satellite telecommunication services.

Source Telespazio

INDRA ESPACIO invites European Earth Observation companies to submit proposals to participate in the tendering process for the PLAN JAGUAR miniprojects in the context of ESA’s EOMD programme. The call includes 4 small test projects (“miniprojects”) to cover different Earth Observation topics of interest for the development of European EO services in Latin America.

The goal of the JAGUAR PLAN is to design an action plan for European Space Agency (ESA), in order to promote the international development of the European and Canadian EO market in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The JAGUAR PLAN has been running since June 2006. Several documents have been produced which are available to the EO community in the JAGUAR website. The miniprojects from the present ITT are the final step to elaborate the Jaguar Strategic Plan with the findings from the whole project.

The miniprojects address the delivery of pre-specified EO products, services or consultancy activities in close collaboration with end users intended to understand better the prospects for European EO services in Latin America and the Caribbean. The 4 selected miniprojects are:

Miniproject 1. Definition of the Lake Titicaca Territorial Observatory.

Miniproject 2. Remote Sensing as an instrument to manage risks and to develop agrarian insurances in the rural sector.

Miniproject 3. Viability analysis of remote sensing products for the urban management in LAC countries.

Miniproject 4. Methodology of environmental audit for the oil and gas activity in Ecuador using Earth Observation techniques.

The success of the international expansion of the EO market will be strongly dependent on the knowledge of the local EO actors in the different countries, and on the establishment of professional links with them and between them.

The complete text of the call and additional supporting information is available at the JAGUAR project website

This website is intended to function as a meeting point where interested institutions and companies can provide their professional data, as well as look up on information from other EO users and from the EO industry.

September News


Kongsberg Satellite Services signs two contracts on improvement of ship and ocean object detection

Kongsberg Spacetec signs two contracts with KSAT.

The objective of the first contract is to implement an improved confidence estimator to distinguish between real detections of a ship or another floating object, and false ones. This will be done using a set of ship related characteristics.

The objective of the second contract is to integrate a set of prototypes into a single prototype service and visualization system and install it in the operational system at KSAT.

For more information about the customer: Kongsberg Satellite Services

Norwegian Defence Research Establishment signs contract on ocean object detection in SAR images

Kongsberg Spacetec signs a contract with Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (NDRE) to assess possible methodologies for using coherence image processing in order to improve ocean object detection in SAR images.

The objective of the work is to use complex radar backscatter and coherence image processing to provide improved object detection on the sea-surface.

For more information about the customer: Norwegian Defence Research Establishment

ESA contract – GSTP Framework Extension for SAR Level 3 Processing

Contract signed between KSPT (Kongsberg Spacetec) and ESA (European Space Agency). The contract is within the GSTP (General Support Technology Programme), and the name of the activity is “Framework Extension for SAR Level 3 Processing”.
The main objective of the project is to develop qualified technology to facilitate multiple channel SAR data exploitation for ship detection, and the project will run until April 2010. Commercial ship detection is an important area for KSPT, with success-stories from both KSAT (Kongsberg Satellite Services) and CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites). CLS has stated that pirate fishing in their area of interest has abolished due to ship detection capabilities. KSAT has been providing operational ship detection services for years. Both are using KSPT systems.

Source “Spacetec”: http://www.spacetec.no/

INNOVA Consorzio per l’Informatica e la Telematica in collaboration with ASI (Italian Space Agency) presented at the 14th Ka and Broadband Conference, held in Matera on the 24-26th September, the first results of a qualitative analysis of real COSMO-SkyMed SAR data with the aid of an open source tool, GSDView.

The COSMO-SkyMed Programme is without a doubt the major Italian project in the space industry. It foresees a total constellation of 4 radar satellites for Earth Observation for dual (civilian and military) use. The constellation will acquire data in several SAR image modes, and will generate focused data products. Presently, two satellites are in orbit and the launch of the third satellite is scheduled for October. The constellation will be complete by 2009.

But why is SAR data so important? Because it allows for constant all weather Earth Observation. Coupled with COSMO-SkyMed’s fast site revisit time, the data from COSMO-SkyMed will be of extreme importance for EO products and applications. This is where INNOVA’s know-how and expertise come into play.

INNOVA has developed the Spotlight processors for Cosmo-SkyMed, and is currently developing the GSDView open source tool for SAR image manipulation and other SW to offer SAR image functionalities such as Data processing, Quality Analysis, Interferometry, Change Detection and MTI.

The qualitative analysis presented has been carried out with the support of the correspondent optical images. The approach used has been to:

-Individualize the targets and the characteristics of the SAR data.
-Verify the characteristics of the data, of the satellite configuration and of the SAR.
-Interpret the data and the connected phenomena.

GSDView was used to elaborate the CSK images. It is an Open Source Tool, currently under development by INNOVA under an ASI (Italian Space Agency) contract, which can manage SAR images from COSMO-SkyMed and other missions (ERS, Envisat, etc). Once completed, GSDView will be a comprehensive tool for SAR images. Currently, it has the following functionalities:-Ingestion / data exchange -Graphic Interface

For more information, visit GSDVIEW

Various contexts were analyzed within the SAR images, with specific attention to human interest areas, such as: metropolitan areas, ports and coasts and agricultural areas.
The data set used for the analysis has been predominantly from SCS (Single-look Complex Slant), DGM (Detected Ground Multilook), GEC (Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected) and GTC (Geocoded Terrain Corrected) products acquired by the COSMO-SkyMed satellites SAR1 and/or SAR2 in StripMap and Spotlight acquisition modes.

The completed analysis shows the great potential of the sensor. The COSMO-SkyMed data regards the possible use in Earth Observation (EO) applications such as Change Detection (CD), Moving Target Detection (MTD) and Interferometry, of significant importance in both Military and Civilian spheres because they consent target detection with geometric and physical characteristics. The stability and high resolution characteristics of the sensor together with the fast revisit rate foreseen for the COSMO-SkyMed system will allow to define new high level product categories and make possible new innovative applications for the EO field.

Future activities will cover in-depth quantitative analysis with ground measuring and validation campaigns.

About INNOVA
Headquartered in Matera, Italy, INNOVA Consorzio per l’Informatica e la Telematica is a technology provider in the remote sensing field, with experience in the development of Fleet Management and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), know-how and expertise geared towards the Earth Observation industry and the Public Administration Sector, and highly specialized knowledge of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), High Performance Computing (HPC) and GRID technology.

For more information, please contact our International Relations Manager, Marina Doubell:
Email: doubell@consorzio-innova.it
Phone: +39.0835.307760
Website: www.consorzio-innova.com

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación) has approved the Integra Project (Migration Management Technology Research) in which GMV is participating.

(September 2008). Integra, run by a consortium of fifteen Spanish firms and several research bodies, will develop an integrated management system for migratory movements from the country of origin to the destination country, closing borders to illegal and improper traffic of people without hindering legal and proper movements of people.

It will also furnish the necessary tools for obtaining, processing, analyzing and generating valid and dependable information for creating a known environment.

‘Integra’ thus aims at “advancing technologies for guiding the concept of migratory control towards a vision of migration management”. This vision takes in the whole set of preventive, immigrant-control and -integration actions “in terms of the new all-embracing concept of the extended border”, taking in the country of origin, the transit area, the regulated and unregulated border crossings and the territory of the destination country itself.

Within this consortium GMV is task leader in the use of satellite-based technology for immigration control, involving several technological developments.

The project, part and parcel of the “Cenit” program, will last for four years and involve an investment of €28 million.

Source GMV#

Crop-mapping + Gisat ISO compliant + FLOREO prevents flooding + COCONUT project


Crop mapping

Agriculture land mapping for pesticides monitoring in the hydrosphere

Landcover & landuse mapping for environmental monitoring is one of our key activities. Today, lot of remote sensing applications in this domain are possible and the users´ requests are more and more demanding. Having in mind the dynamics of landscape changes the agriculture land is in the main challenge.

In 2007 Gisat has been contracted to deliver acriculture crop map for the whole country. This task was part of the project “Occurence and transport of pesticides in the hydrosphere” realized by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (Department of Water Quality) and the Czech University of Life Sciences (Department of Soil Science and Soil Protection). One the the project topics is pesticide risk areas delineation. Agricultural crop map represents the main input here. In the next step the problems of pesticides transport through the soil layer and potential underground water contamination are discussed.

Crop mapping for such a large region is not an easy task. It is necessary to use satellite imagery covering large area with high temporal resolution. Envisat MERIS data with spatial resolution of 300m has been processed to classify five agricultural clasess using the neural network classifier.

Gisat ISO compliant

The company is certified according to the ISO 9001:2000 & 14001:2004 standards

In September Gisat has formally completed its effort to certify company´s Quality Management System (QMS) and Environmental Management System (EMS) according to the ISO 9001:2000 & 14001:2004 standards.
The certification through the United Registrar of Systems Ltd., an internationally recognized certification body headquartered in the United Kingdom, confirmed our long-term focus to maintain and continuously improve the quality of provided services and products.

At the same time the company is aware of increasing importance of environmental issues and reflects its responsibility to contribute to sustainable development principles.

You can find more information about about our QMS and EMS in the Quality & Environment section

ISO 9001:2000 Certificate of Registration
ISO 1401:2004 Certificate of Registration

FLOREO prevents flooding

How Earth Observation can help during flood risk modelling and monitoring?

FLOREO (Demonstration of ESA Environments in support to FLOod Risk Earth Observation monitoring) is an ESA PECS project that is part of the programme to support Czech research and industry in cooperation with ESA before the country becomes a full ESA Member.

The project is oriented on development and implementation of relevant EO-based services in the Czech Republic to support existing hydrological monitoring activities, especially snow melt and surface water runoff contributing to flooding events. The idea of the project and the approach chosen have been thoroughly discussed with the Czech Hydrometerological Institute (CHMI), the main national organization mandated in monitoring and prevention of flood threat.

The use of EO data as a tool to deliver timely, spatially exhaustive and consistent information about different parameters of land surface brings new possibilities for hydrological monitoring systems used in flood risk analysis. The information about snow, as an important component in hydrological monitoring systems, is delivered by means of EO in full coverage compared to only discrete point measurements. Other land surface properties and their dynamics monitored by EO allow more detailed predictions of for instance surface water runoff contributing to flooding events.

The proposed methodology is based on combination of the different spatial and temporal scales of the imagery as well as employing optical and radar technology. The use of medium and coarse resolution satellite imagery with high temporal resolution will be focused on snow cover mapping & monitoring.

Soil moisture topic will be approached from two different aspects: use of soil water modeling technique (by means of soil and precipitation data) and use of soil moisture products derived from EO data. The model may be run regularly to simulate soil moisture changes in a predefined grid. Surface water runoff modeling and the flood risk assessment will be approached by analysis of the up-to-date information about capacity of soil water infiltration and corresponding surface water run off risk from coming precipitation. This analysis includes soil moisture modeling and vegetation monitoring. The data about vegetation status in form of decadal LAI or NDVI map will be used. The CN2-Runoff Curve Number method is used to model water run off risk. The availability of above information together with the land cover data and soil map will allow much advanced and more reliable implementation of this model.

After the assessment and validation of modeling approaches it is expected the last step will represent the integration of weather scenario forecast data to allow modeling and quantification of eventual flood risk.

The project also includes development of web portal based solution with integration of external data sources. The portal will be based on open standards respecting ESA recommended SOA architecture (WS) and will provide two types of access. The user interface in Czech language will allow national users direct access to web portal services. It will provide basic, easy and simple access to predefined set of service elements implemented within this system. This shall be the dedicated solution for the main user – Czech Hydrometerological Institute. For the other users the FLOREO service elements will be accessible through the global ESA SSE portal. Full set of required interfaces for service publishing (such as Service Provider or Data Provider) will be implemented.

FLOREO team is formed by three Czech partners: SPRINX (project leader), Gisat a Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague

COCONUT project

Understand the effect of land-use change on biodiversity in Europe

Since November 2006 Gisat is involved in the COCONUT (Understanding effeCts Of land use Changes ON ecosystems to halt loss of biodiversity due to habitat destrUction, fragmenTation and degradation) project. It is two year FP6 project coordinated by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala with eleven partner institutions of eight EU countries.
The main objectives have been defined as follows:

* to assess impact of historical habitat loss on biodiversity
* to evaluate biodiversity loss in Natura 2000 sites
* to model impacts of future land use on biodiversity

Gisat keeps the responsibility for mapping part of the project – land use change mapping in about 150 selected sites of five EU countries (Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland and Estonia). Except for Corine Land Cover like mappping (43 thematic classes, minimum mapping unit of 25 ha, minimum mapping change of 5 ha) the important task was to realize detailed mapping of the most valuable areas – from the biodiversity aspect these were defined as various local types of seminatural grassland.
Such a mapping was based on the current aerial orthophotos and the archive aerial images of 60’s of the last century (first of all the archive images have been orthocorrected and mosaicked).

At the same time wide range of biodiversity data about the species richness of plants and animals have been collected by local experts to evaluate the impact of historical loss, fragmentation and degradation of habitats.

More information about COCONUT and related projects can be found here

COCONUT project leaflet

Geoville workshop

The final user workshop of the GeoVille led ESA project DIVERSITY took place at the Zamarano University in Honduras by invitation of CCAD (the inter-governmental Commission for Environment of Central America). The meeting was attended by official delegates of all 7 nations within Central America and covered by the national newspaper in Honduras, demonstrating the high interest of the region.

Link to the press release of the Honduras newspaper La Tribuna

Source Geoville

EUROSENSE completed end 2007 the first cross-border Urban Atlas for the region of Courtrai, Tournai, Lille, Douai and Valenciennes. This map can be used as basic data layer for the recently founded Eurodistrict.

The Eurodistrict intends to set up, across the borders, projects about transport, economical and regional development and about urban planning. To make a common policy possible the government has to have accurate data at its disposal. The new map, based on satellite images, shows the soil occupation of the largest part of the Eurodistrict. This map can be consulted online, and Land.

The production was realised by EUROSENSE within the project GSE Land (GMES Service Element), funded by ESA – Urban Atlas is an European initiative, its purpose is to map the largest European cities according to a fixed procedure and legend. This legend consists of 26 different classes (derived from the CORINE and MOLAND nomenclature) with focus on artificial areas.


ES_GSE_Land_promo

Through this initiative it will be possible to compare the land use of different European cities and follow it up in time. The Urban Atlas constitutes also the basis for the calculations of different Urban Audit indicators/statistics.

This Urban Atlas is based on SPOT5 satellite images (2005-2006) with a 2.5m resolution.

The realisation of the project was a cooperation between the ‘Intercommunale Leiedal’, the province of West Flanders, l’Agence de Développement et d’Urbanisme de Lille Métropole and EUROSENSE.

EUROSENSE has a great expertise in the processing of satellite images. EUROSENSE has no limitations concerning satellite type or resolution. We have profound experience in the processing of a large spectrum of optical and radar satellite images (FORMOSAT, KOMPSAT, SPOT, IKONOS, Landsat, TerraSAR-X, …).

Contact
EUROSENSE Belfotop NV
Nerviërslaan 54
1780 Wemmel, Belgium
Tel: + 32 (0)2 460 70 00;
Fax: + 32 (0)2 460 49 58;

Source EUROSENSE