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The Airbus built, pollution monitoring satellite Sentinel-5 Precursor has been successfully launched on a Rockot from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia

Sentinel-5 Precursor is part of the global monitoring programme “Copernicus”, a joint European Commission–European Space Agency undertaking which aims to acquire continuous and accurate Earth observation data and provide services to improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change, and ensure civil security.

Sentinel-5 Precursor will provide essential atmospheric chemistry data to the Copernicus programme before the Sentinel-5 instrument becomes operational in 2021 on the MetOp Second Generation satellite.

Airbus was prime for Sentinel-5 Precursor, with four sites involved in development and manufacturing of the satellite and its components: Stevenage (UK – prime contractor), Toulouse (France), Friedrichshafen (Germany) and Leiden (Netherlands).

Colin Paynter, Managing Director of Airbus Defence and Space in the UK said: “Today’s successful launch again moves forward the European Sentinel programme in which Airbus is playing a key part. Sentinel-5 Precursor was built in record time using the commercially successful AstroBus platform, and demonstrates Airbus’ ability to adapt its range of hardware to new missions to meet important operational needs.”

The UK’s Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson MP said: “The successful launch of the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite is a clear demonstration of the UK’s valuable contribution to improving global knowledge through satellite data, and the heights we can reach by collaborating with our European partners. Our ongoing investment in the UK space sector forms a key part of our Industrial Strategy, and we are committed to ensuring that we have the infrastructure and skills in place to support our ambition to capture 10% of the global space market by 2030.”

“With Sentinel-5 Precursor in orbit, we have achieved another important milestone that takes the European Commission-led Copernicus programme into a new area: observing the air that we breathe,” said Josef Aschbacher, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes. “Without the substantial contribution of the Netherlands to the TROPOMI instrument on board this satellite, we would not have been able to build this satellite. And it was a European collaboration of 30 high-tech companies under the leadership of Airbus Defence and Space which made the mission possible.”

Sentinel-5 Precursor features the TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument) instrument, developed by Airbus DS Netherlands for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Netherlands Space Office. TROPOMI will measure ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, methane and other atmospheric pollutants at a higher resolution than previous instruments. Having more accurate atmospheric data will enable improved climate models and pollutant tracking and forecasting. The MetOp Second Generation spacecraft will feature a different Sentinel 5 instrument.

Successful separation of Sentinel-5 Precursor from the launcher was achieved at 10:46 GMT.

Notes for editors

The PanGeo Alliance, the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators, announced Geoinformation Systems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus as the latest new member of the alliance. In addition, PanGeo celebrated 3 years since its launch in Paris, as all the members gathered in the French capital in September to commemorate the formation of their collaboration and to evaluate its results and look to the future.

The current space assets of the new member include a new multispectral sensor, BKA-1, with a spatial resolution of 2.1 metres. The PanGeo Alliance fleet now consists of 13 operational Earth Observation sensors, providing multispectral imagery in a wide range of resolutions, from 20 m to 75 cm per pixel. With 7 operational very-high resolution satellites, the PanGeo Alliance manages the largest virtual constellation of submetric satellites in the world. This unprecedented collaboration assures a daily global imaging capability, with multiple revisit opportunities per day over any target.

Additionally, the imagery acquired by the different satellites are fully compatible, enabling a seamless exploitation of the consortium’s data.

The satellites, located in different orbits, allow the capture of the same area of interest several times a day, and at different hours, boosting the possibilities to acquire cloud-free imagery in short periods of time. This is key for a wide range of applications, especially those requiring a real-time response and frequent monitoring over the same area of interest, such as border and maritime surveillance, emergency services and defence and security.

Since its launch in September 2014, the PanGeo Alliance has carried out several joint projects, such as large country coverages for mapping, demonstrating the added value that working together presents for both the members and the customers.

The PanGeo Alliance is an unparalleled consortium of several entities working synergistically as one single body. The international character of the alliance, which transcends borders, represents a valuable asset that enables it to target businesses and stakeholders in a wide range of sectors, worldwide.

“We are delighted to join the PanGeo Alliance in a collaboration that, we believe, can significantly accelerate decision making in a wide range of fields benefiting end users. Making BKA-1 imagery available within the PanGeo portfolio will expand the market for us and give opportunities for new and existing customers,” said Sergei Zolotoi, Director of the R&D enterprise Geoinformation Systems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

For more information, visit http://www.pangeo-alliance.com/


PanGeo members welcome new member and celebrate 3 years of achievements

Deimos Imaging and its parent company UrtheCast Corp., announced a broad partnership with Esri, starting with a new UrtheCast imagery service which is powered by Esri: Kanvas. The service enables all Esri users to access timely, reliable and quality assured imagery, directly into their apps and desktops. The on-the-fly imagery service curated by Deimos imaging, is a precursor to the upcoming UrtheDaily™ constellation which is expected to image the entire Earth daily at 5m resolution, complimenting Sentinel-2 and Landsat applications.

Since July 11, 2017, when Kanvas was presented at the Esri User Conference in San Diego, anyone with the ArcGIS platform had free access for three months to the multi-season time series of medium and very-high resolution satellite imagery, over the whole of Spain and California. Hosted in Amazon Web Services using ArcGIS, Esri users can utilise the multi-temporal imagery service and start building valuable apps for monitoring, change detection, precision insights and more.

“We are very excited about the broad partnership with UrtheCast and for our users to explore the potential of Kanvas using ArcGIS. Allowing users to create simple, quick, insightful apps, based on timely and qualified imagery, will inspire new solutions in GIS” said Lawrie Jordan, Director of Imagery at Esri. “We fully support the upcoming UrtheDaily constellation and see significant interest from our users. Delivering daily coverage of the Earth as geo-analytic ready imagery directly into the hands of our users, means that mapping the Earth daily is now a step closer, and the intelligent map a future reality.”

“We see that easy-to-use value-added products and services with geo-analytics capabilities are significantly broadening the utility of Earth Observation data. The future is in user-focused, real-time apps”, said Jamie Ritchie, Business Development Director at UrtheCast and Deimos imaging. “The goal of Kanvas is to bring imagery to life by leveraging machine learning algorithms in an integrated environment. By partnering with Esri, we are delighted to make available our imagery in ArcGIS, to significantly accelerate decision making in a wide range of fields.”

Figure 1: Kanvas imagery service enables users to extract analytics and build valuable apps including change detection, precision insights and monitoring

27 July 2017. Precision farming is set to become even more precise with a new camera drawing on satellite imaging. Thanks to research with ESA on new cameras, hyperspectral cameras flying on drones are now able to see details as small as 4–5 cm.

Three customers are already using the first version of the ButterflEYE LS camera: in Denmark for biological diversity studies, in Australia for agricultural research, and in Italy for providing commercial data to farmers.
The experiences will be fed back into the final commercial version.

“Our first customers were really keen on getting the high resolution, which is the best you can currently get from a hyperspectral product,” notes René Michels, CEO of Germany’s airborne specialist Cubert, who collaborated with Belgium’s VITO Remote Sensing and imec for the camera development.

The camera exploits the potential of a novel hyperspectral imaging chip from imec by combining it with VITO’s image processing honed by working with ESA on remote sensing satellites. Weighing just 400g, the powerful camera fits easily on a small unmanned aircraft to deliver detailed measurements for precision agriculture but it has also potential in forestry, biomass monitoring, waste and pollution management.

Harnessing the power of colour
“Hyperspectral imaging captures many very narrow wavelength bands in the visible and near-infrared instead of the more typical three or four broad spectral bands: red, green, blue and, sometimes, infrared.”


Fireblight disease detection in pear orchards in St Truiden, Belgium, achieved by analysis based on RGB and hyperspectral data taken from a drone. Credit: VITO Remote Sensing

“By imaging the world in more colours, you can detect certain phenomena faster and more exactly,” explains Bavo Delauré from VITO Remote Sensing. “A camera that is more sensitive to subtle differences in colour allows you to identify problems that you can’t see with your naked eye or a normal camera until it’s too late to do anything about it.”

Historically, a prism has been used to separate the colours but this results in complex optics and larger cameras. Following VITO’s work on the Proba-V satellite, ESA’s Luca Maresi set the company a challenge of producing a lightweight hyperspectral camera based on a different technology.

The initial approach uses a variable filter in front of the detector, creating an instrument as compact as a standard colour camera and therefore suitable for use on small satellites and drones. One is used by Dutch Cosine Research in their HyperScout camera for the GomX-4B CubeSat, to be launched this year.

Space spin-off helps on Earth

To make the camera even more versatile and suitable for mass production, imec created an ultra-small sensor with the hyperspectral filter incorporated. Cubert used this filter-in-chip sensor in their new ButterflEYE LS camera.
Hyperspectral cameras produce huge amounts of data that have to be downloaded to VITO’s cloud computing environment to be processed to produce the required information, including action maps to help the customer.

“You need to know where in the colour spectrum to look in order to identify the changes you are seeking and derive the required information,” explains Bavo.

“In addition, drone-based imaging is, in some respects, more complicated because satellites fly in a smooth trajectory, whereas rotary and fixed wing systems are more sensitive to air movements and less stable than satellites,” adds René from Cubert. “It produces a huge amount of data that is complex to work with, and we could not have achieved this without VITO’s competence in image processing.”


Hyperspectral imagery of strawberry fields in St Truiden, Belgium. Credit: VITO Remote Sensing

Earth observation is more than just image processing

“Many people fly drones and think they can now do Earth observation, but it’s much more complicated than that,” points out Sam Waes from Belgian company Verhaert, part of ESA’s technology transfer programme network.

VITO has detailed knowledge of how to extract information from hyperspectral data and had already developed a prototype camera. So we did some marketing feasibility studies with them to identify opportunities for taking this to market. The end result is very exciting. Now we have an extremely small and efficient camera for local agriculture observations from the reuse of space technology, a camera that can provide more detailed and exact measurements compared to what has been available until now.”

Further advances underway with ESA

The next step is to add standalone processing, which VITO and Cubert hope to do by the time the ButterflEYE LS moves to a fully commercial offering in 2018. Then the users can do the processing themselves, instead of now with the support from VITO.

A consortium involving VITO has already been working with ESA to optimise the software for satellites, with the result that the HyperScout instrument now has its own onboard processing.

“This is a big revolution in the way we operate satellites. Now we have a very tiny system that can deliver realtime information ready to use, for example on forest fires or natural disasters,” explains Luca Maresi.

Other planned developments include a much more sensitive chip – 12 megapixels instead of the current 2 megapixels – which is now being developed under an ESA contract by a VITO-led consortium.

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Toulouse, 30 May 2017 – Airbus Defence and Space has launched the “Global Earth Observation Challenge”, encouraging start-ups worldwide to innovate and develop new applications primarily based on Airbus satellite data. These creative ideas are designed to bring new developments of Earth observation services, as well as ground-breaking solutions.

The goal of this 4-month challenge is to create added value for new businesses focusing on themes identified as important topics for the global population. This gathers forestry, agriculture, smart cities and maritime, but can be enlarged to any other themes that would be judged relevant. The first two months will be dedicated to ideation, followed by two other months of deepening.

Five finalist start-ups will have the chance to pitch their pioneering project in front of Airbus Executives and selected stakeholders. The challenge winner will receive a voucher worth €50,000 for satellite data as well as coaching for the development of their start-up, the second winner will be rewarded with satellite data vouchers worth €20,000, the third €15,000, the fourth €10,000 and the fifth will get €5,000. Participating in this challenge will also include the opportunity of being integrated to the Airbus BizLab, the global aerospace business accelerator.

The following Airbus imagery, data and services will be provided to participants:

  • Very large imagery datasets available online or for download: City of Sao Paulo, City of Toulouse, State of California
  • Machine Learning datasets: planes and ships signatures and imagery
  • Various API: OneAtlas for Innovation, Universal Earth Observation Catalog

Companies interested are invited to join the Airbus Defence and Space Global Earth Observation Challenge by registering here.

Media contacts
Fabienne Grazzini. ph: +33 5 62 19 41 19. Email:fabienne.grazzini@airbus.com

VisioTerra is an independant French company specialized in Science Consulting for Earth Observation. They developped VtWeb an most innovative solution for Earth Observation.

VtWeb is a platform enabling users to easily browse free Earth observation data across the Web, display them in 2D/3D and process them on-the-fly. Raw or processed images may also be exported in GeoTIFF or KML.

This software has 5 key features :

  • It enables 2D and 3D visualisations of Earth Observation datas
  • It is an intelligent data-layer manager for earth observation such as Google Earth
  • It is an innovative data treatment on-the-fly
  • VtWeb server at VisioTerra premises maintains a database of qualified datasets for more than 240 Terabytes : Altimetry (DEM, geoids, bathymetry), LU/LC (ESA Globcover), Envisat ASAR, Envisat MERIS FRS
  • It offers a wide range of services (VtAoiWatcher, VtFinder, Vt Alti, VtPace…) with various data catchers or producers to provide users with Earth Observation data.

An example with the STUDIES TOTAL – Cryosat over Arctic :
Study of the potential of satellite data to monitor the environment in very cold areas
See a hyperlook of an other altimeter: S3/SRAL

Wednesday, June 7, 2017. EO Cloud Platform, developed by Creotech Instruments S.A. and Cloud Ferro Sp. z o.o. has joined the pan-European ambassador network of Copernicus Programme.

Members of this community will be responsible for promoting the benefits of the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, informing about its advantages and opportunities, expanding the user community, developing new applications, and promoting the potential of using satellite data.

As the official representative of Copernicus Relay, Polish companies responsible for the development of the EO Cloud platform, combining a powerful repository of up-to-date satellite data with cloud computing, will coordinate and develop initiatives promoting the Copernicus Programme as a source of public and reliable data and information that can help develop business and stimulate economic growth in the European Union.

An ambitious programme of Earth observation
Copernicus is a European Union program designed to develop European information services based on satellite Earth observations and in situ data collection by ground stations, and airborne and marine sensors. The programme is coordinated and managed by the European Commission and the development of observation infrastructures is under the umbrella of the European Space Agency and the Member States.
The collected data help us understand how our planet and climate change, the role human actions play in these changes, and how they affect our daily lives. According to the programme’s creators, the prosperity and security of future generations is more than ever dependent on coordinated actions at international level and on conscious environmental policy. In order to take the right action, policy makers, businesses and citizens must have reliable and up-to-date information on the changes taking place on our planet and the progressive climate change.
The main users of Copernicus services are decision-makers and public authorities who need information to develop environmental legislation and policies or make key emergency decisions, in situations such as natural disasters or humanitarian crises.

Development impulse to Europe
Information provided by Copernicus can be used by end users for a wide range of applications in a variety of areas. These include: urban management, sustainable development and nature conservation, regional and local planning, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, health, civil protection, infrastructure, transport and mobility, and tourism.
According to the European Commission, data provided by European satellites can contribute to the development of innovative services and products dedicated to public institutions and businesses.

About EO Cloud
EO Cloud is a flexible tool that combines a powerful repository of up-to-date satellite data with a cloud of computing capabilities to find, process, and extend data stored in a repository. The platform enables entrepreneurs to create their own services based on the use of Earth observation data. It has a friendly interface and a flexible price list tailored to the needs of different users. EO Cloud resources are used by businesses, academics, universities, public institutions, and research institutes all over the world. The platform was created within a project implemented by an international consortium of companies: Creotech Instruments S.A, CloudFerro Sp. z o.o. and Brockmann Consult at the request of the European Space Agency.

Additional information is provided by:
Dawid Michnik, mob: +48 603 504 709, d.michnik@attentionmarketing.pl
Kamil Melcer, mob. +48 606 996 681, kmelcer@cloudferro.com

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TRE continue to apply their expertise to support the RATP (the public operator for the transport of Paris) in their efforts to ensure greater safety and security and network availability by using the most innovative satellite technology. Since 2012, the RATP has been using TRE ALTAMIRA services to support the maintenance of their network.

Benjamin Gorget, civil engineer and project manager at the RATP Department for the Management of Infrastructures, explains that the RATP gives great importance to the integration of advanced technologies in their mission of providing a more secure, reliable and efficient transport service. The use of satellite technology has proven key for a comprehensive monitoring of the Parisian network as it enables to better anticipate any impact caused by ground motion.

The RATP implements a surveillance programme based on traditional methods which are very precise but less flexible, explains Benjamin Gorget. As these campaigns are on-site they need to be conducted during the night with no train circulation. Satellite monitoring represents the ideal complement of these methods.

A new study has recently been delivered to the RATP focusing on the monitoring of the aerial network covering a total area of 77km. Special attention has been paid to bridges and viaducts which are considered sensitive structures as their construction dates back to the 1960s. These updates keep the RATP constantly informed about any slightest movement detected likely to cause disorders on these structures.

The study was made with data from the TerraSAR-X satellite and the results delivered by TRE ALTAMIRA included 1,2 million of measurement points that confirmed that the area studied is generally stable.


Ground motion map of a section of the aerial network for the period studied (2011-2016).

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WESTMINSTER, Colo.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Jul. 6, 2017— DigitalGlobe, Inc. (NYSE: DGI), the global leader in Earth imagery and information about our changing planet, today announced it has selected Space Systems Loral (SSL) to build the spacecraft for its next-generation WorldView Legion constellation, which will deliver industry-leading resolution and accuracy, enable high-revisit applications, and assure service continuity for the company’s customers through 2030.

SSL has entered into a firm-fixed price contract with DigitalGlobe to build the WorldView Legion satellites—the first of which is planned to launch in 2020—to replace the WorldView-1, WorldView-2, and GeoEye-1 satellites. The WorldView Legion constellation will double DigitalGlobe’s capacity to collect 30 cm and multi-spectral imagery starting in 2020. Once combined with DigitalGlobe’s existing WorldView satellites and the forthcoming Scout small satellite constellation, DigitalGlobe will image the most rapidly changing areas on Earth as frequently as every 20 to 30 minutes, from sunup to sundown. These capabilities will provide even greater insights into global events of significance, giving customers the ability to make critical decisions with confidence when time is of the essence.

“WorldView Legion represents DigitalGlobe’s commitment to meet the demanding and evolving needs of our diverse customer base for many years to come, building upon our excellent track record of performance, best-in-class satellites and ground infrastructure, and deep understanding of government mission needs and commercial applications,” said Dr. Walter Scott, DigitalGlobe Founder, EVP & CTO. “We have great confidence in the quality, value, and reliability of the SSL spacecraft.”

“The award of this contract with DigitalGlobe demonstrates our emerging leadership in building satellite constellations and Earth observing spacecraft,” said Richard White, President of SSL Government Systems. “DigitalGlobe is known as a global leader in advanced geospatial solutions, and we are pleased that they have placed their trust in our proven performance and state-of-the-art design for a fleet that will provide exceptional agility and persistence.”

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The Sentinel Hub, a satellite imagery web services for seamless integration of open EO data in any GIS application is richer for Sentinel-2 L2A products and Sentinel-1 SAR data.

The Sentinel Hub is a satellite imagery web services for seamless integration of open EO data in any web, desktop or mobile GIS application. It makes satellite data (Sentinel, Landsat, and others) easily accessible for browsing or analysis.

Its service-oriented satellite imagery cloud infrastructure takes care of the complexity of handling the imagery archive and makes it available via easy-to-integrate web services. No need to download large files, manage complex formats, process, re-project, mosaic, etc. No need for enormous storage volumes and compute power.

In the last months the Sentinel Hub is in great demand, which can be attributed also to new advanced features and the availability of the new products recently integrated into the services.

New datasets available

To already supported products such as Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, ESA’s archive of Landsat 5, 7 and 8, global coverage of Landsat 8, and Envisat Meris, the Sentinel-2 L2A products and Sentinel-1 SAR data were added. Both of newly integrated data sources are available for browsing through publicly available EO Browser and other Sentinel Hub web services.

Sentinel-2 L2A

The Sentinel-2 L2A data are atmospherically corrected using Sen2Cor by ESA. The data available through Sentinel Hub is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is available in original tiles for AWS users. One can explore and download the satellite imagery with two types of atmospheric correction, the official L2A data available for wider Europe, and a run-time optimized statistical atmospheric correction, provided by Sinergise and available for the whole Sentinel-2 archive.


The Dunes of Costa Verde, Sardinia, Italy, acquired with EO Browser on June 13, 2017

Sentinel-1 SAR

SAR data are much more complex than optical, but the fact that S-1 data are not orthorectified proved to be the most difficult challenge. Sinergise managed to facilitate MapZen’s DEM data hosted by AWS and, using data fusion with Sentinel-1 available on EO Cloud in Poland, integrate Sentinel-1 SAR data successfully into the Sentinel Hub services.


Ship Monitoring – Sentinel-1 uses wide area coverage with improved revisit times and is able to potentially detect smaller ships. Port of Antwerp, acquired with EO Browser on June 11, 2017

Explore the data on your own

To explore the Sentinel Hub capabilities and use more advanced services, such as the WMS service, request a free trial at www.sentinel-hub.com/trial, or apply for ESA’s funded free R&D account.

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