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Berlin, October 29th, 2015 — BlackBridge, a Planet Labs company, is the leading partner of the project ForMoSa, an Innovator III project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) through the Data User Element . The project aims at developing methodologies for forest degradation monitoring and algorithms for sensor interoperability in the frame of REDD+ MRV. These are considered as high-priority research topics by the Global Forest Observation Initiative (GFOI).

For this project, BlackBridge has teamed up with Wageningen University and FAO, two world-class organizations with an active involvement in REDD+. Wageningen University provides scientific support for the development of novel approaches for deforestation and forest degradation monitoring, whereas FAO’s role in this project is to validate the outcome methodologies and results from the test sites in Peru, Vietnam, and Ethiopia.

“This is a very exciting opportunity for us to develop methods and workflows to further increase the usefulness of EO data for REDD+ MRV. Advancing sensor interoperability and forest degradation assessment will definitely provide some grounds for that,” said Rene Griesbach, project manager for BlackBridge.

Inge Jonckheere, from FAO, states, “Accurate deforestation and forest degradation monitoring are critical to support developing countries in their readiness for REDD+. We are very pleased to participate in this project with top players in this domain and contribute to the development of new EO-based methods to tackle these challenges and share them with the REDD+ countries.”

To learn more about the ForMoSa project, please visit www.formosa.global.

About BlackBridge
BlackBridge, a Planet Labs Company, provides end-to-end solutions across the geospatial value chain. These include satellite operations, ground station services, and worldwide satellite imagery distribution through over 100 BlackBridge partners, combined with the creation of value-added products and geo-service solutions. For more information on BlackBridge, please visit www.blackbridge.com.

Contact
BlackBridge AG
Kurfürstendamm 22
10719 Berlin
Germany
press@blackbridge.com

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This year IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest, Very High Temporal Resolution from Space, will use DEIMOS-2 Very High Resolution (VHR) multi-temporal data and HRC/Iris High-Definition Video from space. Both the VHR images acquired at two different dates and the video from an in-orbit camera cover an area over Vancouver (Canada). The data were acquired and provided especifically for the Data Fusion Contest by Deimos Imaging and UrtheCast respectively.

The Data Fusion Contest is organised each year since 2006 by the Data Fusion Technical Committee of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS). It is a challenging opportunity, open not only for IEEE members, but for every researcher interested to solve remote sensing problems with data obtained from a variety of sensors.

This year the contest aims at promoting progress on fusion and analysis methodologies for multisource remote sensing data. For this reason, Deimos Imaging (Spain) and UrtheCast (Canada) are providing the data sources to be used in the analysis. The data cover an urban and harbour area in Vancouver, Canada. Interested participants can register online and obtain the data sources which include:

Very-High-Resolution images from DEIMOS-2 acquired at two different days, before and after orthorectification (provided by Deimos Imaging). Panchromatic data will be delivered at 1 m spatial resolution point spacing, while multispectral data at 4 m. It is the first time that Deimos Imaging data are contributing to the challenge.

High-Definition Video acquired from the Iris camera installed on the International Space Station (ISS), at 1 m spatial resolution (provided by UrtheCast). It is the first time that participants of the contest will have a HD video from space available for their analysis.

The participants are free to choose their topic, which includes (but is not restricted to): registration (image to image, video to image), change detection, multi-temporal analysis, object detection and tracking (buildings, cars, vessels), image classification (multisensor or multiresolution).

Submissions to the contest are scientific papers presenting the research work done on these data. The best ones will be included in the Technical Program of IGARSS 2016, presented in an oral Invited Session, and published in the IGARSS 2016 Proceedings.

More information about the contest and how to register and obtain the dataset can be found in the following website: http://www.grss-ieee.org/community/technical-committees/data-fusion/data-fusion-contest/


Fig.1: The Data Fusion Contest figure featuring the multi-temporal DEIMOS-2 images and the HD video.


Fig.2: The DEIMOS-2 imagery of Vancouver (Canada) used for the Data Fusion Contest. Left: image acquired on 31 March 2015, right: image acquired on 30 May 2015.

Deimos Imaging

Deimos Imaging, a subsidiary of UrtheCast Corp., is a private Spanish company headquartered in Tres Cantos (Madrid) and with satellite control and processing facilities in Boecillo (Valladolid) and Puertollano (Ciudad Real). The company, one of the world leading satellite imagery provider, owns and operates DEIMOS-1 and DEIMOS-2 satellites, with a 24/7 commercial service from its three facilities in Spain and through a network of ground stations in Canada, Sweden and Norway.
www.deimos-imaging.com

UrtheCast Corp.

UrtheCast Corp. is an international technology company headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Working with partners across the globe, UrtheCast has designed, built, launched, installed, and now operates two Earth Observation (EO) cameras onboard the International Space Station (ISS), including the world’s first UHD full-color video platform from space. Video and imagery data captured by these cameras — the Ultra-HD video camera Iris, and thee medium-resolution camera Theia — is downlinked to ground stations across the planet and distributed directly to partners and customers, or displayed on the UrtheCast web platform.
https://www.urthecast.com/

The PanGeo Alliance, the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators, recently welcomed two new members: Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary (KGS) and UrtheCast. With eight members worldwide, the Alliance now provides access to imagery and tasking opportunities from an unprecedented and growing fleet of Earth Observation sensors. The PanGeo Alliance fleet now includes 14 operational Earth Observation sensors, providing multispectral imagery in a wide range of resolutions (from 20 m to 75 cm per pixel), 4k full-color videos, and AIS data. This unique fleet assures a daily global imaging capability, with multiple revisit opportunities per day over any target.

Three months after the announcement of its sixth member, the PanGeo Alliance continues to expand adding another two new members in its federation: Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary and UrtheCast. The PanGeo Alliance is the first global alliance of Earth Observation satellite operators. With the addition of the new members the alliance counts already eight members from eight different countries: Aquila Space (US), Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology (China), Dauria Aerospace (Russia), Deimos Imaging (Spain), Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary (Kazakhstan), Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (United Arab Emirates), ST Electronics (Singapore) and UrtheCast).

The alliance provides access to imagery and tasking opportunities from a unique and growing constellation of Earth Observation satellites, operated by its members. The constellation encompasses multispectral imagery in a range of resolutions (from 20 m to 75 cm per pixel), and a daily global imaging capability.

Every PanGeo Alliance member brings its unique capacity to the alliance, contributing to the formation of a multi-capable and diverse constellation.

The current space assets of the two new members and their future plans include:

Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary (KGS) is currently operating two Earth Observation (EO) satellites: the High Resolution (HR) KazEOSat-2 and the Very High Resolution (VHR) KazEOSat-1. In addition the company will soon launch its third EO satellite, the Medium Resolution KazSTSAT (see table below for technical details).

UrtheCast Inc. has installed two cameras on the International Space Station (ISS), which are now fully operational: the Medium Resolution Camera (MRC) Theia and the High-Resolution Camera (HRC) Iris. The UrtheCast’s vision includes a satellite Constellation scheduled for launch in 2019. The constellation will be formed by 16 satellites arranged in pairs, each with a SAR and an Optical satellite flying in formation and providing Very High Resolution (VHR) data.

All PanGeo Alliance members can provide access to the full products portfolio of the whole constellation. PanGeo multi-satellite mission planning gives customers access to imaging from all Alliance satellites as well as a connection to directly request tasked imagery from the operator. As more members are joining the alliance, the available fleet is also expanding providing customers with additional imagery resources and imaging opportunities.

PanGeo coordinates the access to member data catalogues in a seamless way, integrating data visibility and ordering from the entire Alliance archive. Customers benefit from a global network of resellers and a unified access point to new tasking and archive imagery.


Fig.1: The eight current members of the PanGeo Alliance


Fig.2: The current and future Earth Observation fleet of the PanGeo Alliance members (medium-res and high-res sensors only)


Fig.3: The current and future Earth Observation fleet of the PanGeo Alliance members (very-high-res, videos and AIS sensors only)

The Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) presented in Milan last May 2015, the Map of land consumption in Italy, produced with the help of Planetek Italia. It is the first example of reuse at national level of Copernicus core downstream services.

Soil sealing (covering the ground with an artificial, impermeable material) is one of the main causes of soil degradation in the EU. According to ISPRA research, more than 7 square metres of soil are lost in Italy every second as a result of soil sealing.

ISPRA released a tender for mapping sealed soil areas using high resolution imagery at the national level in Italy. The aim was to build on the mapping methodology which had been applied at European level in the context of the European Environment Agency (EEA)’s High Resolution Layer on sealed soil (“Imperviousness”), developed as part of the Copernicus Land Monitoring service, to produce a new map at a resolution of 5 metres. The higher resolution makes the product also suitable for applications at a local (e.g. municipal) level.

Planetek Italia’s experience in soil sealing products started in 2006 with the precursor geo-information imperviousness service within the Copernicus (then GMES) initiative of the European Commission. The first update of the imperviousness layer was done in 2009 in the frame of the geoland2 FP7 research project. Today, this service is operational, providing periodically updated maps in the frame of Copernicus Land Monitoring Service.

As a result of this activity, the company has developed a service to support the reporting on soil consumption at national and local level. The new business opportunities through national mapping initiatives.

Furthermore, Planetek is developing a procedure for the update of 5 HR layers which take advantages from the great quantity of EO data that are coming with free and open access. In particular, in order to derive a status map for the 5 HR layers, a combination of SAR and optical data is used, primarily using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data, but the methodology has been tested also using Landsat-8, RapidEye, SPOT and other data.

Links:

Contact
Planetek Italia S.r.l.
Via Massaua, 12 – 70132 Bari
Tel. +39 0809644200 Fax: +39 0809644299
email: info@planetek.it
www.planetek.it

TRE joined CLS at the end of October 2015. Altamira has been part of CLS since 2010.

CLS is a French group with over 700 people working in different offices worldwide. It provides operational services for environmental monitoring and sustainable management of marine resources and security using satellite data.

TRE and ALTAMIRA INFORMATION are leading providers of satellite-based solutions with InSAR for measuring ground motion in a variety of applications and market sectors.
Between the two companies lies a vast knowledge, which will now be exploited to the full.

“This is a very exciting time for both companies, which have a history of excellent results for clients. Our 15 years of experience as leading providers of InSAR solutions mean that together we can now offer an outstanding portfolio to our clients” explains Roberto Lorenzo, CEO of ALTAMIRA INFORMATION.

Alessandro Ferretti, CEO of TRE, adds: “The synergy between TRE, ALTAMIRA INFORMATION and CLS creates by far the largest provider of surface deformation measurements using satellite radar data. Our mastery of this technology will increase exponentially and our international team of experts will work jointly to develop even more sophisticated and powerful algorithms opening new applications“.

Together, TRE and ALTAMIRA INFORMATION form the largest InSAR group worldwide, counting on 80 people with a diverse range of technical and scientific backgrounds, including geologists, geophysicists, environmental engineers and radar specialists.

TRE and ALTAMIRA have offices in Milan, Barcelona, Toulouse and Vancouver.

TRE
Headquarters
Ripa di Porta Ticinese, 79
20143 Milan, Italy
sales@treuropa.com
www.treuropa.com
Altamira Information
Headquarters
C/ Corsega, 381-387
E-08037 Barcelona, Spain
info@altamira-information.com
www.altamira-information.com

[Via Satellite 01-11-2016] IHS and Airbus Defence and Space have announced a three-year partnership agreement.

Under the agreement, Airbus Defence and Space will provide newly acquired imagery from its Pleiades, Spot and TerraSAR X satellites, for use as primary sources and fusion with open source information for actionable intelligence. It will also provide access to the GO Monitor service, which delivers reliable surveillance and change information anywhere on Earth. The Airbus and IHS Aerospace, Defence & Security partnership brings together world leaders in insight and imagery to deliver a detailed picture of dynamic events in volatile regions worldwide.

IHS Aerospace, Defence & Security has been using imagery from Airbus Defence and Space for more than two years, breaking significant news stories on a second Russian base in Syria, new developments in North Korea’s nuclear program as well as island building in the South China Sea.

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GISAT leads an international project aiming at implementation of operational information services supporting urban vacant land recycling within the sustainable business model.

In recent decades, urban sprawl became a serious European-wide problem, not only due to total land taken, but also due to its spatial distribution patterns and quality of the land consumed. Land use efficiency is becoming a prime political objective at both European and city level, and the EU Land Communication aims to establish “zero net land take” across the EU by 2050. Land is a finite resource and therefore the sprawl has to be regulated. This can be realized through careful management of urban land, applying the concept of land recycling. Only such an approach can assure sustainable development of European landscape in the long term perspective.

The EU funded URBIS (Urban Land Recycling Information Services for Sustainable Cities) project targets these issues and focuses on investigation of vacant land potential in urban areas, and the opportunities for previously developed land or brownfield to support urban regeneration safeguarding greenfield sites, as well as on investigation of urban green systems. URBIS delivers methodologies and tools to provide accurate up-to-date intelligence that is comparable across European cities to support the definition and implementation of sustainable planning and governance strategies in cities and city-regions throughout Europe.

URBIS services are built on data acquired in frame of the Copernicus programme. This generates large number of standard open-data, Earth Observation datasets as well as standard services (Urban Atlas, High Resolution Layers (HRLs)), which can be utilized for urban land recycling policy support. First, analysis based directly on Urban Atlas thematic layer are implemented, to obtain the overview about the amount and distribution of potential development sites. Second, advanced image analysis methods are employed, to gather additional information, which is not available in Urban Atlas thematic layer, in particular about internal structure of the sites. These techniques, utilizing both pixel and object based image analysis (OBIA) approaches, are dealing with multiple spatial, spectral and textural image characteristics. They are applied preferably on SPOT5 imagery, acquired for European Urban Atlas mapping. As a result, the inventory of potential development and green sites in urban areas, including their characteristics detectable from EO data, like level of sealing, amount and type of vegetation cover etc., has been obtained. Preparing detailed methodology, the robustness is an important factor, to assure the applicability of workflow for potential European-wide analysis in the future.

The implementation is demonstrated on three pilot sites – Greater Amiens (FR), Osnabrueck (DE) and the Moravian-Silesian Region (CZ). Baseline services for the year 2012 and backdating towards 2006 and cca 1996 will be implemented. Then, thematic services will be prepared, exploiting results of baseline and update services, to provide information about the urban re-development potential directly to the users. Character of URBIS services has been tailored to meet requirements of end-users, which were set in close cooperation with pilots and with an external Stakeholder Board. Both strategic users at different levels (local and regional authorities, European and national agencies in charge of urban planning) and operational users (such as industrial estates operators or private land developers which can be interested in information on suitable vacant sites) are targeted.

URBIS project (http://www.ict-urbis.eu) has received funding from the EU FP7 ICT Policy Support Programme as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (Grant Agreement No. 621125). The URBIS project consortium is lead by GISAT (Czechia) and consists of six additional partners: SIRS (France), Universitaet Osnabrueck (Germany), UNIGE (Universita Degli Studi Di Genova, Italy), STADT+ (Germany) and ADUGA (Agence De Developpement Et D’urbanisme Du Grand Amienois Association, France).

Gisat provides wide range of geoinformation services based on Earth Observation technology. It focuses on operational application of satellite mapping to monitor various aspects of our environment and development of dedicated web based platforms for geoinformation analysis and assessment
Web // E-mail // Tel:+420 271741935 // Fax: +420 271741936

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has awarded Airbus Defence and Space with two research projects to enhance Emergency Preparedness and Safety of Operations in collaboration with Canadian partners.
Airbus Defence and Space will monitor man-made changes on land and support tactical ship route planning in Arctic Waters

Based on the trusted collaboration in space, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have announced the funding of six major research projects in the domain of Emergency Response and Safety of Operations. DLR has awarded Airbus Defence and Space with two of them.

In collaboration with MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, Ltd. (MDA), the first project will examine man-made changes on land using multi-frequency SAR satellite Data. The methods developed throughout this project will monitor the changes’ impact on the environment including new buildings, roads, forests, and surface movements due to industrial activities such as mining. For the second project, Airbus Defence and Space will work with C-CORE to investigate the synergistic use of X- and C-band SAR-data for tactical ship route planning in Arctic Waters, its objective being to monitor the sea ice situation along shipping routes in the north. Both Canadian partners receive funds from CSA.

Taking benefit from combining both missions – the German TerraSAR-X and Canadian RADARSAT-2 satellites – these projects aim to support safe transportation, exploration, and monitoring. Enfotec Technical Services Inc., one of the end users, believes that “satellite imagery plays a vital role in ensuring the safety and efficiency of navigation in ice covered waters. This project addresses how to best use different satellites concurrently in order to increase the overall quality of the ice information provided to ships.”

“With our experience in natural disasters and maritime monitoring, we are confident to support Canada in improving its emergency capacity readiness in the High North” said Simon Jacques, President of Airbus Defence and Space Canada Inc.

Fabienne GRAZZINI
+ 33 5 62 19 41 19
fabienne.grazzini@astrium.eads.net
www.airbusdefenceandspace.com

… another step closer to democratizing Earth observation data with the addition of 22 m Deimos-1 imagery dating back to 2011.

This rich archive includes coverage of the contiguous United States with a focus on the growing seasons. Utilize this powerful dataset to build crop yield predictive analytics or water management algorithms – among others – on major agriculture regions across the USA.

You can now also view the past, present, and future locations of both Deimos-1 & 2 satellites utilizing the Satellite Tracker API.

View Deimos-1 in NDVI

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Thales Alenia Space will again participate in Copernicus program. Company will for sure use their experience during first series of Copernicus satellites called Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B. Worth €402 million contract estimates that Sentinel-1C and Sentinel-1D will be launched on 2021 or later. According to Thales Alenia, Sentunel-1A launched on 2014 is now fully operational and launching Sentinel-1B is scheduled on spring 2016.

Copernicus, also known as Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is program established in 1998 by the European Commission to provide independent global Earth observation system. It utilizes ground stations, air stations and research satellites to provide most accurate information about Earth condition. Program is mainly focused on gathering information on land, ocean, atmosphere and climate change. Also it is helpful in emergency response and security monitoring. Space part of the program could be divided into two groups. First consists satellites developed especially for Copernicus and in second group includes satellites utilized for Copernicus purposes but realizing other missions. Second group included inter alia: European Remote Sensing Satellite ERS-1, Envisat Earth observation satellite, Cosmo-Skymed imaging satellites, various meteorological satellites like MetOp or MSG or JASON-2 ocean topography research satellite.

Spacecrafts developed under Copernicus program are generally divided into six types which stand after “Sentinel” name. Following satellites from each type are signed with letters in the end. First type, Sentinel-1, is radar imaging satellite providing imaging of land and seas in all weather conditions, also in night. First Sentinel-1 (Sentinel-1A) was launched on 2014. Next group is Sentinel-2 – optical imaging satellite providing high resolution pictures for utilizing during emergency situations, with first satellite launched on 23 June 2015. Sentinel-3 is scheduled for 2016 (You can read more here) and will provide global monitoring services. Further type of Sentinel, called Sentinel-4, scheduled for 2012, will be gathering data on atmospheric composition. Sentinel-5 is planned as replacement of ENVISAT satellite lost in 2012; Sentinel-6 is developed to replace JASON-2 in future.

Sentinel-1 satellites are based on Prima bus which was developed by Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Alenia Aerospazio as main contractor on 2001. Bus was designed as universal, modular solution possible to utilize in various types of satellites. Using this bus by Thales Alenia Space was natural solution due the fact that Alenia Aerospazio is part of Thales Alenia Space and its easy adopting for different purposes. Prima also showed its advantages as bus for imaging satellites being utilized in four Cosmo-Skymed satellites utilized for Copernicus program. Sentinel-1 satellites are equipped with C band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for radar imaging with ground resolution from 5 to 25 meters. Onboard instruments are powered by deployable solar arrays and batteries. Sentinel-1 weighs 2280 kg and has operational life at 7 years.

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