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Planetek Italia is very glad to announce that is now an authorized distributor of Deimos Imaging, high-resolution world imagery solutions to customers in Italy.

Planetek Italia is an Italian SME company, with more than 20 years experience in the data processing, geo-information and systems development for geographic data management and Space missions.

With this agreement, Planetek Italia will enrich its capacity to offer remotely sensed satellite products and value added services, by adding DEIMOS-1 and DEIMOS-2 satellite data to its list of widely used imagery.

Deimos Imaging, subsidiary of UrtheCast Corp. (Canada), is a private Spanish company headquartered in Tres Cantos (Madrid) and with satellite control and processing facilities in Boecillo (Valladolid) and Puertollano (Ciudad Real).

Deimos Imaging owns and operates the DEIMOS-1 and DEIMOS-2 satellites with a 24/7 commercial service, thanks to three facilities in Spain and through its own network of ground stations in Canada, Sweden and Norway.

Moreover, Deimos Imaging also operates two sensors onboard the International Space Station: Theia – 5m, 50 km swath – and Iris, the world’s first full-color UHD video camera at 1m spatial resolution.

The DEIMOS Earth Observation system, owned and operated by Deimos Imaging, is currently composed of 2 satellites:

  • DEIMOS-1 provides 22m/pixel multispectral imagery with a very wide (650-km) swath, assuring very-high-frequency revisit on large areas, especially tailored for agriculture, forestry and monitoring applications in mind.
  • DEIMOS-2 is an agile satellite designed for cost-effective, dependable very-high-resolution EO applications. Providing 75-cm pan-sharpened images, it is the highest-resolution fully private satellite in Europe, and one of the very few privately owned submetric satellites in the world.
  • By contacting Planetek Italia sales dept., users can also ask for imagery from the satellites of the PanGeo Alliance, and multispectral imagery from Theia (5m resolution, 50 km swath) and videos collected in space from the Iris camera on the ISS. These 1m full-color videos from space provide unprecedented information useful for military intelligence and infrastructure monitoring on our planet

“We are excited to be an authorized distributor for Deimos Imaging.” said Giovanni Sylos Labini, CEO, Planetek Italia. “As provider of edge technologies for the European Space Agency (ESA), Italian Space Agency (ASI) and other leader research and development entities in Europe, Planetek Italia assure state of the art products to their customers. This agreement widens our geospatial distribution options, giving our current and reference customers more precise answers to their needs”.

About Planetek Italia
Planetek Italia is an Italian company specialised in geo-informatics, Space solutions and Earth observation. The company provides solutions to exploit the value of geospatial data through all phases of data life cycle from acquisition, storage, management up to analysis and sharing. Planetek Italia operates in many application areas ranging from environmental and land monitoring to open-government and smart cities, and including defence and security, as well as scientific missions and planetary exploration.
For more information visit www.planetek.it

About Deimos Imaging
Deimos Imaging, a subsidiary of UrtheCast Corp. (Canada), is a private Spanish company headquartered in Tres Cantos (Madrid) and with satellite control and processing facilities in Boecillo (Valladolid) and Puertollano (Ciudad Real).
Deimos Imaging owns and operates the DEIMOS-1 and DEIMOS-2 satellites with a 24/7 commercial service from three facilities in Spain and through own network of ground stations in Canada, Sweden and Norway. All the ground segment software, from mission planning to image processing, has been co-developed in-house, allowing a unique capacity to customise the service to best suite all customer needs. Deimos Imaging provides high-quality services to clients worldwide, including imagery from own constellation of satellites and from the satellites of partners like the PanGeo Alliance, and value-added applications in a wide range of fields.
For more information visit www.deimos-imaging.com

Agricultural operations work on thin margins, and conventional field inspection methods are time consuming and inefficient.

Missing a small area of pest or insect infestation can result in a big loss when it comes to harvest, and over-fertilizing can be just as costly as using too little fertilizer over the long term. Analyzing airborne imagery from low cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can hereby offer an efficient and cost-effective way to aid in the assessment of field health and the estimation of crop yields, particularly when it comes to critical information for high value specialty crops such as strawberries. The following case study hereby presents a remote sensing processing workflow from UAV data collection to automated image analytics for agriculture monitoring on the example of a strawberry field using ENVI Modules from Harris Geospatial Solutions.

The test site is located near Plant City / Florida / U.S.A. This place is known as the winter strawberry capital of the world and hosts the annual Florida strawberry festival. Data collection was employed by Highland Agriculture, a US provider of state-of-the-art precision agriculture tools, using a MicaSense RedEdge multispectral camera on board of a UAV. The five spectral bands of this camera are specially targeted to agricultural applications (blue, green, red, red edge, near IR), with high spatial (8 cm GSD at 120 m AGL), radiometric (12-bit) and temporal (1 capture / sec) resolutions.

Preprocessing of the collected UAV imagery included band-to-band alignment and stacking of the individual multispectral layers into one single MultiPage Tiff file, as well as creation of an additional GPS formatted file with the sensor locations and orientations during acquisition. Using the advanced photogrammetric algorithms of ENVI OneButton the UAV images were georeferenced, orthorectified and finally mosaicked. For the orthorectification, a Digital Elevation Model was derived from the overlapping UAV images. Postprocessing consisted of atmospherically correcting the UAV orthomosaic to relative surface reflectance by removing instrument effects, the solar irradiance curve and atmospheric effects from scattering and gas absorption.


Agricultural analysis with the ENVI Precision Agriculture Module was divided in three sections. First, the number, position, and size of the individual strawberry plants were extracted from the final UAV orthomosaic. For this purpose, the Sum Green Index (SGI, after Lobell et al. 2003) was calculated. In the resulting index image, plants could be clearly distinguished from the background soil. Secondly, based on this image and an estimate of the minimum and maximum crop size, strawberry plants were automatically counted using a crop counter tool. Finally, given the results from plant counting and the post-processed multispectral UAV orthomosaic, a specific crop health tool was used to investigate the relative and absolute health distribution of the individual plants based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).

This precision agriculture workflow is suitable for diverse crops and provides farmers with a fast and accurate solution for tailored crop management to guide activity. The extracted metrics of the individual plants in the crop area help to predict yield and allow farmers to efficiently identify crop stress.

This workflow can be made turnkey for operational use and deployed to enterprise environments. For example, its analytics are implemented in Highland Hub, a web-based farm management system of Highland Precision Ag providing services and analytics for crop monitoring.

To find out more about Harris Geospatial Solution ’s precision agriculture tools, attend the company`s oral presentation at the Commercial UAV Expo and Conference Europe on 20-22 June in Brussels or visit the Harris stand (#427)

Understanding our planet and the impact of climate change: a vexing question for several years now. How is Europe actually facing climate change and its impact? To take necessary actions and measurements, policymakers and public authorities need reliable and up-to-date information. Information on how our planet and climate are changing. This is why the European Union set up the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

Remote sensing as a driver to develop EU information services

Copernicus is the EU’s Earth observation programme. It addresses six thematic areas, one of which is the Copernicus Climate Change Service . With an ever-growing global population, our planet is suffering the consequences of human-induced climate change. To mitigate the effects we need to act now. The European Commission is investing millions in Earth-observation programmes. Thanks to these programmes various remote sensing techniques are being developed. Techniques and solutions that are necessary for gathering, combining and analysing various types of Earth-observation data and climate indicators to identify the drivers, and to forecast the expected impact.

Climate information about past, current and future states

Via the C3S online service portal, users will have access to information that assists in monitoring and predicting climate change, and that will therefore help to support adaptation and mitigation. The C3S service portal combines climate observations with the latest scientific methods to develop, quality-assured information about past, current and future states of the climate in Europe and worldwide.

VITO Remote Sensing has more than 20 years of experience in the production and analysis of global time series. In the Copernicus Climate Change Service, VITO Remote Sensing, together with the consortium partners, is responsible for delivering long-term series of global data on three Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) to the Climate Data Store (CDS). These ECVs are: Leaf Area Index (LAI), the fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fAPAR) and surface albedo. The Climate Data Records (CDRs) cover a period of more than 35 years, stretching from 1991 to the present.

Read more on https://blog.vito.be/remotesensing

In January of 2017, the National Land Service of Lithuania under the Ministry of Agriculture hosted a formal hearing about a Copernicus Sentinel feasibility study. The results of the study were highly favourable for the Sentinel products and were positively evaluated by experts. As a result, it was formally decided to develop a national archive of production-ready Sentinel imagery with open access for the public and to start using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 products at a national level for all geospatial applications related to agriculture, forestry and environment protection.

On January 12, 2017, the National Land Service of Lithuania under the Ministry of Agriculture – an institution responsible for implementation of geospatial information procurement and geospatial information policy coordination in Lithuania – hosted a formal hearing about “Feasibility study of Sentinel satellite mapping usage for the detection of abandoned arable land”. The study, executed and delivered by GEOMATRIX UAB”:http://www.geomatrix.lt/cms/index.php, a Copernicus Relay in Lithuania, showed findings regarding the use of Sentinel products for mapping of abandoned arable land. The main goal of the study was to develop automated processing algorithms and carry out testing of the use of Sentinel data for detection and mapping of abandoned or under-exploited arable land. The study also compared Sentinel-2 imagery with the commercial products used since 2011 for annual updates of the National abandoned arable land database.

The results were highly favourable for the Sentinel products and were positively evaluated by a group of experts representing key stakeholders from several institutions under the Ministry of Agriculture. It was formally decided to develop a national archive of production-ready Sentinel imagery with open access for the public and, most importantly, to start using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 products at a national level for all geospatial applications related to agriculture, forestry and environment protection. The implementation process will start early this year – so Lithuania is formally joining the Copernicus user club thanks to the availability of the full, free and open data.

Anzelma Ūselienė, the coordinator at the International Collaboration department of the Lithuanian Science, Innovation and Technology Agency, expressed her enthusiasm about the Copernicus Programme development in Lithuania: This kind of success stories prove that Copernicus contributes towards the development of new innovative applications and services, tailored to the needs of specific groups of users. It supports the efforts to identify, respond and adapt to global phenomena. Furthermore thanks to the full, free and open data policy it gives rise to new value-added applications, uses and markets, stimulates companies to explore new fields, business opportunities and fosters job creation.

Below is a list of information services based on Sentinel products that will be fully implemented on a national scale in 2017:

  • Mapping of abandoned and under-exploited arable land;
  • Detection of arable land with faulty drainage infrastructure;
  • Operational monitoring of farming activities for Common Agricultural Policy subsidies control.

A new service requested by the Lithuanian Environment Agency and currently under development:

  • Operational monitoring and assessment of biophysical conditions of wetlands and peatlands;
  • Operational monitoring of forest clear-cuts and re-forestation.

The Lithuanian government is taking steps to take agricultural policy and environment management into the space age. It is an excellent example of how a government is embracing Copernicus-based technological advancements to foster industrial innovation, sustainable management of the environment, preserving natural resources and building a better future for its citizens.

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London, 29 March 2017 – Interoute, owner operator of a global cloud services platform and one of Europe’s largest and most advanced networks, has been selected by Spacemetric to support its data storage and distribution needs. Spacemetric is a Swedish software company which streamlines the transformation of raw data from satellite and airborne sensors into imagery products ready for analytics.


Interoute to provide Spacemetric with secure storage solution for satellite data, supports EU earth observation program for environmental and humanitarian research

Sentinel-3 Satellite

This secure storage solution will be integrated with the web-based SWEA (Swedish Earth data Access) platform, developed by Spacemetric on behalf of the Swedish National Space Board. The platform is part of the existing EU earth observation program Copernicus managed by the European Space Agency (ESA). The data is collected and used to support environmental and humanitarian research. The ESA’s archive of images is available to scientists and businesses across the world via the cloud. The archive, hosted by Interoute’s private cloud network, is shared widely – from governments to entrepreneurs looking for ways to turn the data into business opportunities. SWEA can now ensure the availability of data with specific relevance to Swedish users.

Interoute Virtual Data Centre zone in Stockholm launched 6 months ago and is one of 17 global zones that make up Interoute private networked cloud.

“We chose Interoute as they could offer an efficient hybrid solution combining physical storage with the Interoute Virtual Data Centre in Stockholm. As a result, we are guaranteed secure storage of local data as well as superior access due to low latency. It also means that the development process is more agile, making it possible to quickly and easily scale our efforts up or down depending on demand”, said Mikael Stern, CEO at Spacemetric.

Matthew Finnie, Interoute CTO, commented: “It’s fantastic to be selected by Spacemetric for this exciting project supporting the EU earth observation program for environmental and humanitarian research. Interoute was the first global cloud provider to launch a zone in the Nordic region that offers both plic and private cloud on one platform. And our Stockholm cloud zone is one of 17 global zones that make up our private networked cloud. This new project is validation that the ‘local presence, global reach’ approach to cloud is key to meeting the needs of the market in Europe”

About Interoute
Interoute is the owner-operator of one of Europe’s largest networks and a global cloud services platform which encompasses 15 data centres, 17 virtual data centres and 33 colocation centres, with connections to 195 additional third-party data centres across Europe. Its full-service Unified ICT platform serves international enterprises and many of the world’s leading service providers, as well as governments and universities. Interoute’s Unified ICT strategy provides solutions for enterprises seeking connectivity and a scalable, secure advanced platform on which they can build their voice, video, computing and data services, as well as service providers in need of high capacity international data transit and infrastructure. With established operations throughout Europe and USA, Interoute also owns and operates 24 connected city networks within Europe’s major business centres. www.interoute.com

About Spacemetric
Spacemetric is a software company streamlining the transformation of raw data from satellite and airborne sensors into imagery products ready for analytics. Lars Edgardh and Torbjrn Westin co-founded Spacemetric in 1999 to turn the craft of satellite image production into a flexible industrial process. Today the company delivers affordable, high-performance software solutions for all types of geospatial imagery to sensor operators, solution integrators and large users of image data in both the civilian and defence sectors. The Keystone Image Management System is Spacemetric’s software data hub for handling, processing and serving geospatial imagery from any type of flying or orbiting imaging sensor. It is based on rigorous photogrammetric techniques that ensure high quality results and rapid data delivery while minimising costs by enabling extensive use of on-demand services that minimise the necessary processing and storage footprint.

(Guildford, UK, March 2017) Earth-i, the innovative British distributor of earth observation imagery and services, is following up their successful tender award from the Government of Queensland by supporting the upcoming International Symposium on Digital Earth & Locate 17 Conference which will be held in Sydney from 3rd to 6th of April 2017.

The Queensland Department of Natural Resources chose Earth-i and their data to map their entire State because, in the words of Steve Jacoby, Executive Director of Land and Spatial Information, the company; “demonstrated a clear understanding of our needs in Queensland and the DMC3 / TripleSat Constellation provides us and other Queensland government departments with both the wide area capability and the very high resolution imagery required to meet the needs of the user community”.

At the forthcoming Symposium and Conference, Earth-i looks forward to meeting with many other key users and members of what is a mature remote sensing community. Australia makes its geo-coded National Address File freely available online and developments such as the Queensland Globe, which will allow users to view and explore the State’s spatial data shows how the country is embracing the benefits that thinking spatially can bring.

Dr Zaffar Sadiq Mohamed-Ghouse, Chair & Convenor of the Locate17 and Digital Earth Symposium Organising Committee, noted that “Both government and the private sector will be able to identify opportunities based on what is happening around the world”. He says: “Geospatial data underpins many disruptive and innovative organisations. Without it, companies like Uber would not be in business.”
Earth-i is perfectly placed to suport this burgeoning industry; their data from three satellites represents a combination of imagery with the right resolution and an ability to re-visit the area of interest within the right timescale.

Commercial Director, Paul Majmader explains more about his trip to the Locate 17 Conference and what he hopes to achieve during his time in Australia; “I have been attending the Locate conferences for a number of years now and am always impressed by the advanced approach Australia takes with geospatial data and services.

Earth-i is keen to engage with further members of the Australian geospatial community and hopefully support further projects with our data and services. The DMC3 2016 archive covers a large proportion of Australia with 80cm data – we are keen to understand the interest in maintaining an annual coverage and distributing this on a wider basis.”

Click to visit the International Symposium on Digital Earth & Locate 17 Conference website and follow this link for more on Earth-i imagery

Earth-i: (www.earthi.space) is a British company dedicated to facilitating the distribution of data from the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation. As the prime master distributor appointed by 21AT, Earth-i provides a portal for data users wishing to take advantage of the advanced data and services made possible by this uniquely capable Earth Observation satellite constellation.

Earth-i is co-located on the Surrey Research Park in the UK with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, the manufacturer of the DMC3/TripleSat constellation. www.earthi.space www.sstl.co.uk

KONGSBERG has launched Kognifai, the company’s open and collaborative digital platform that places a portfolio of applications into the cloud.

Kognifai focuses on optimizing data access and analysis for customers across maritime and energy industries, and also provides an integrated development and distribution platform for efficiency enhancing applications.

Kognifai is designed to enable value creation for KONGSBERG customers throughout the digital value chain. It is an all-encompassing and open digital ecosystem for users to collect, store, analyze, and apply the data they generate using KONGSBERG and third-party systems. It is also an expert platform for development of new data-centric applications, a single portal to access vital solutions developed by KONGSBERG and uniquely, certified third-party developers.

Since 2014, different business units within KONGSBERG have merged their technology, knowledge, and effort to create Kognifai, KONGSBERG’s universal response to the growing wave of digitalization across all industries. Our aim is to drive business for our customers and help them take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the digitalization of industry, the internet of things, automation, and robotics. Now, Kognifai is expanding the boundaries of the industry by acting as a single digital platform for all data produced across the technology spectrum.

Facts about Kognifai:

  • Developed to accelerate the digitalization of existing and new business areas within KONGSBERG and to simplify the business transformation journey for customers
  • Provides access to KONGSBERG’s extensive portfolio of standalone solutions as well as third-party solutions
  • Serves as a development hub and storefront for external developers encouraging participation and sharing
  • Allows customers to subscribe to the solutions they need as and when they need them with a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach
  • Opens the possibility for smaller and niche companies with limited resources to bring their innovations to the Kognifai connected global community
  • Ensures shorter time to market for existing and new products and services
  • Protected by the highest level of cybersecurity and a strict application certification process for all third-party services and applications
  • Includes industry-specific solutions for machine learning and advanced analytics
  • Has a state-of-the-art 3D engine which is easy to use and allows for rich and advanced applications and real-time simulation tools
  • Reduces IT costs by moving to the cloud, but applications will also run on premise
  • Offers a high level of support for all developers, whether they are from KONGSBERG or other companies

Jørn Seglem, SVP Digital Platform and Analytics in Kongsberg Digital, reported that the Kognifai ecosystem is built on a core of cybersecurity, customers’ ownership of their information, and data integrity, but the open standards make it easy to add and integrate both KONGSBERG and third-party applications.

kognifai.com

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By combining the freely available Sentinel-2 satellite imagery with other data sources, VITO hands everyone in the Belgian value chain vitally important tools. They are then able to stimulate the further growth of potato production.

Satellite revolution!

In the past few years, a true revolution has taken place in the satellite business. Hundreds of Earth Observation satellites have been launched and are in orbit today, taking pictures of our planet on a daily – sometimes hourly – basis. A lot of the ESA satellite images are freely available. At the same time, prices for images taken by commercial satellite operators are also dropping. All this results in thousands of gigabytes of easily navigated data that opens up a world of possibilities for, amongst others, agricultural applications.

Bringing space technology down to the potato fields

To start with, it is now possible to keep an eye on every field everywhere in the world. Information can be derived from satellite imagery. For example, it’s possible to calculate a reliable indicator of a crop’s productivity (fAPAR).

Thanks to the commonly available high resolution satellite data, you can now derive the productivity indicator for every spot in the field and even tell farmers which parts of theirs field need attention. By combining this satellite data with the weather and soil data, it is even possible to provide meaningful information throughout the season on the development and health of the potatoes in every single field.

WatchITgrow®, a platform for everyone in the potato value chain

WatchITgrow®, launched on 14 March 2017, is a platform tailor-made for the potato sector in Belgium. It allows everyone in the potato value chain to monitor every single potato field in Belgium. It is designed to be both a platform for collaboration between farmers, traders and the processing industry, and a monitoring tool aimed at stimulating further growth of potato production to help it keep up with industry demand.

As the potential arable land in Belgium is limited, growth needs to come from increases in productivity. Currently, the sector reaches an average yield of 40 tons/hectare. By allowing farmers to record all actions taken on their land and by monitoring the health of the crops, it will be possible to further increase productivity in the coming years.

Farmers now can benchmark the productivity of their fields with the production averages of neighbouring fields, fields within their provinces or even at national level. This will allow farmers to investigate why their fields or varieties are performing better or worse than other fields or varieties. Industry will get accurate information on the evolution and productivity of different potato varieties at a regional level.

Can WatchITgrow® really revolutionize the sector?

In Belgium, potatoes have evolved from being a side crop to being a main crop. The processing industry is growing quickly. Innovative tools such as WatchITgrow® will help the sector to further increase both quantity and quality of potatoes. It will allow farmers to make timely corrections and, in doing so, increase their yields to an average of 60 tons/hectare. By investing in new technologies, the Belgian potato sector is convinced it can strengthen its position as a world leader.

More to come

WatchITgrow® will be further developed in close cooperation with the potato sector. As it is an open platform, more and more data from other sources will be integrated. On our roadmap we have a list of new functionalities that will be added over time to provide farmers with tailor-made advice, such as fertilization and irrigation advice and warnings for various pests and diseases.

For more information, please visit WatchITgrow® website.
This article is extracted from VITO blog

(Ljubljana, Slovenia, March 15, 2017) Sinergise has launched a free satellite imagery visualisation tool – EO Browser – developed in close cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). EO Browser has been launched at the World Cover conference at ESA, ESRIN in Frascati, Italy.

Sinergise Ltd., a GIS company building advanced solutions for management of spatial data, is launching a free satellite imagery visualisation tool – EO Browser – bringing a possibility to easily search and study vast amount of archive and fresh satellite imagery residing in the cloud – Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3, European Space Agency’s (ESA) archive of Landsat 5, 7 and 8, global coverage of Landsat 8, and Proba-V products. All of these are available in one place for the first time, providing a full resolution insight into more than 30 years of changes in Europe and several years worldwide. Everyone can find a relevant scene everywhere on the Earth and dive in the details in a matter of seconds.

EO Browser is an easy to use web application, publically available with no registration needed to access standard functions. It combines many remarkable features such as comparison of data to easily identify changes, various visualisation options (true color, false color, NDVI, etc.), custom band combinations and even some data processing mechanisms, allowing users to run classification scripts. It is a perfect tool to find relevant satellite images and prototype various pixel-based algorithms. It provides a possibility to pin the layers and locations, making it easy to resume research at a later stage. Leeway to export data processing results in georeferenced files and store algorithms is offered to registered users.

Instant access to browse through petabytes of newest and archive data and chronological comparison of full resolution images from the data sources mentioned above raises Earth observation to a completely new level. One simply goes to the area of interest, define search criteria such as time range and cloud coverage, and inspects the resulting data from different sources.


Durrat Al Bahrain, Bahrain – The user can apply different pre-installed and custom spectral band combinations to highlight and visualise any data type on the image. Different variety of bands are useful in agriculture, vegetation studies, maritime monitoring and analysis, natural disasters management and more.

Expert users, who would like to get earth observation data in their own GIS environment, can make use of Sentinel Hub OGC services.

With EO Browser, which offers all ESA optical missions in one place, there is no need to download, archive and process petabytes of data as desired result can be shown immediately in the browser or within your own GIS environment. Recently integrated Sentinel-3 mission made it possible to combine Sentinel-2 with a bit less detailed but higher frequency data – at European latitudes it is possible to get a new image almost every day.

“A revolution is happening in Earth Observation. With enormous amount of data being available, large part of it free, there are unlimited possibilities out there to address various user cases. EO Browser, built on the top of Sentinel Hub, represents a part of this process, but there is a lot more to be done.” said Grega Milcinski, managing director at Sinergise. A front-end application is an open source so anyone can take it and build added value services on top of Sentinel Hub OGC services.

Data Scientists, Software Developers and GIS Engineers at Sinergise developed EO Browser in close cooperation with ESA. It was launched at the World Cover conference at ESA, ESRIN in Frascati, Italy on March 16, 2017.

Try EO Browser yourself or contact the team for more details!

(Munich, 21/02/17) The Munich-based company has been awarded another major supply contract for VHR satellite data and services to support checks within the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

European Space Imaging announced today that the company has signed a multi-year framework supply contract with the European Commission for the provision of very high-resolution (VHR) satellite data and associated services in support of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

This third exclusive framework agreement between the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and European Space Imaging (EUSI) covers imagery from the most advanced fleet of VHR satellites and grants the JRC and the EU Member States access to imagery of the highest spatial and spectral resolution currently commercially available. The contract has an estimated total value of 38 million EUR over a period of up to 4 years and will be carried out by European Space Imaging its technology partner GAF AG and in close cooperation with the satellite operators DigitalGlobe and SI Imaging Services.

European Space Imaging will be responsible for providing satellite imagery and associated services directly to the European Union Member States for the Control with Remote Sensing (CwRS) and Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) quality assessment of the CAP. The company will be managing all activities from satellite acquisition planning through to the final imagery delivery, including liaison with all stakeholders involved on EU and national level.

European Space Imaging has been the most reliable VHR imagery supplier to the European Commission in the Controls with Remote Sensing (CwRS) program and has delivered the bulk of the data for a yearly increasing number of control sites since the VHR program’s inception in 2004. The company operates its own satellite ground station with direct access to the leading constellation of five VHR satellites.

“Our efficiency and set-up allows us to support large and complex European programs such as CwRS. I want to thank our specialized teams and dedicated partners for their great achievement. We keep expanding our capacities to continue offering the best quality and service in the market. Again, in 2017, our company will make a multi-million Euro investment in improving our ground infrastructure technology and hiring additional staff,” says Adrian Zevenbergen, Managing Director of European Space Imaging.

About CwRS:

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

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

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

About European Space Imaging

European Space Imaging (EUSI) is the ‘go to’ company in Europe if you are looking for very high-resolution satellite data. Their current ’best’ offering is 30 cm data from the DigitalGlobe WorldView-3 satellite.
EUSI also operates a multi-mission ground station to provide direct satellite tasking. This enables optimized image collection strategies, flexibility and real-time weather assessments for new collections.
With a reputation for expert and personalized customer service EUSI has been providing tailored VHR imagery solutions from their Munich headquarters to meet the diverse project requirements of their customer base since 2002.

For more information please contact:

Penelope Richardson, Marketing Manager
European Space Imaging
Arnulfstrasse 199, Munich 80634
Tel: +49 (0) 89 1301420
Fax: +49 (0) 89 13014222