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Companies call for innovative radar project submissions as part of the Earth monitoring Copernicus Masters Competition.

Madrid (Spain), June 25th, 2014.- Hisdesat, the Spanish government provider of satellite services, has an agreement with Airbus DS to promote the development of innovative ideas for applications using satellite radar images. This challenge is part of Copernicus Masters Competition. The challenge is the use of high resolution SAR data (synthetic aperture radar), from the constellation of the PAZ satellite and TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X Hisdesat. The integration of data from other sources will also be taken into account. Both companies are seeking creative ideas that include maritime monitoring, security applications or change detection.

This challenge reaffirms the strong spirit of collaboration and innovation that exists between Airbus and Hisdesat DS. At the end of this year, the Spanish satellite PAZ (owned and built by Airbus Hisdesat DS), will join the virtually identical satellites TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X Airbus in the same orbital plane. In combination with the identical picture modes offered by these three satellites, this concept makes it possible to harness the potential of a satellite constellation with high revisit rates, increased coverage and improved service.

Proposals will evaluate, among other factors, innovation, customer potential and economic benefits. Their ability to integrate satellite radar data will be considered, and the relevance within the Copernicus program.

The competition monitoring Earth, Copernicus Masters, aims to support the development of commercial applications based on data from Earth observation. Each year since 2011, awards grants to innovative solutions for business and society in the context of observation. It is part of the European Copernicus program (formerly known as GMES-Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), designed to create a modern and qualified service infrastructure of Earth observation and geo-information. Participants, whether students, entrepreneurs, developers and SMEs, to submit their proposals by July 15, 2014, through the website of Copernicus Masters: http://copernicus-masters.com/index.php?kat=challenges.html&anzeige=airbus_hisdesat.html

Hisdesat

Hisdesat was founded in 2001 as operator of government services by satellite to act primarily in the areas of defense, security, intelligence and foreign affairs. Since 2005, the company provides secure satellite communications to government agencies of different countries and is currently developing new satellites in two areas: Earth Observation and Information of the worldwide maritime traffic by satellite (AIS). More information: www.hisdesat.es

For further information:
Araceli Serrano
PR Communications Manager
Tel: +34 91 4490149
aserrano@hisdesat.es

For the first time Sentinel-1A satellite was operationally used to support emergency management operations in the Balkans, where prolonged heavy rainfalls and widespread flooding since the 15th of May 2014 triggered the declaration of the State of Emergency.

In order to provide fast and complete map product delivery it is crucial to take into account and use all available sensors.

Although the radar sensor carried by Sentinel-1A is still in commissioning stage, its data was integrated into the Copernicus EMS flood maps of the Sava river in the Balatun area in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Although the processing chain in use have not yet been tuned to process Sentinel-1A data, and despite the tight timelines for map production, new procedures have been put in place to exploit Sentinel data and to combine them with the pre-event analysis achieved from Spot 6.

Sentinel-1A was launched on April 3rd from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and it is the first in a fleet of Sentinel satellites developed for European Copernicus programme.

e-GEOS Space Centre in Matera supported the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) of the Sentinel-1A satellite and verified that the operation ensured the sound functioning of the platform and the radar platform and instrument on board the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth observation satellite Sentinel-1A. In the early hours of the morning of Sunday April 6 (05:53 CET), the first on-board telemetry and navigation data in band-X was received.

The Matera Space Centre is one of the Core Ground Segment’s three ground stations built under the leadership of the ESA for European environmental monitoring program Copernicus. Matera was chosen as the first station to be involved in the delicate LEOP phase and commissioning of the mission, which began immediately after the launch of Sentinel-1A.

Sentinel-1A satellite aids flood relief in the Balkans
Title: Flood map
Released: 28/05/2014 10:17 am
Copyright: ESA/European Commission, produced by the Copernicus Emergency Management Service
Flood delineation map over the village of Balatun in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina based on Sentinel-1A data. Serbia lies to the north of the Sava river

Within the Balkan floods in the end of May Civil Protection authorities involved in in-field operations brought aid using disaster maps issued by the European Commission’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service soon after the first floods.

e-GEOS is the Service Provider of the Emergency Management Service leading an international team that includes GAF (Germany), ITHACA (Italy) and SIRS (France).

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service is funded and coordinated by European Commision. Since the 16th of May the production teams worked day and night to perform geospatial analysis of the newly acquired satellite data over Balkan areas.

The most affected areas of Doboj, Zenica, Vlasenica in Bosnia, Ljubovija, Lazarevac, Paracin in Serbia, and Zupanija in Croatia have been closely monitored by the Emergency Management Service. About 60 delineation flood maps (and about 40 reference maps) have been produced thanks to the combined efforts of a pool of more than 25 people.

All maps are available on the GIO (GMES Initial Operations) Emergency Rush Portal managed by the JRC.

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(20 June) The GEO-Intelligence team of Airbus Defence and Space hosted their 2014 Channel Partner Conference (CPC) from 13-14 May 2014 in Toulouse, France. During this event, DHI GRAS was awarded the ‘Best New Comer’ award for the Northern Europe and Middle East region.

It’s been two years since the very first partnership was signed between the two organisations. This award is the direct product of DHI GRAS’ commercial success and proactive attitude in their work.

“The best part of DHI GRAS’ team was their expertise, professionalism, customer care and satisfaction provided to deliver projects on time and budget,” said Martin Holt, Regional Sales Director at Airbus Defence and Space, Geo-Intelligence. “They have been instrumental in helping us open new sales channels for all of our product range including optical imagery such as Pléiades and SPOT6 as well as for radar data such as TerraSAR-X and even Elevation1 & 4 high-resolution Digital Elevation Model.”

He continued, “This is a typical example of a win-win partnership that enables the complete portfolio of Airbus products to reach new customers and industries within Denmark and beyond. So we obviously look forward to capitalising on the current business momentum created by DHI GRAS in Denmark and will continue to support them in delivering best-in-class products and services to their growing client base.”

Rasmus Borgstrøm, Project Manager at DHI GRAS commented, “At DHI GRAS, we’re of course very delighted about this recognition given by Airbus Defence and Space, and we look forward to continuing this fruitful collaboration. We do see quite a big potential for further dissemination of the excellent products that Airbus DS can provide our clients and partners with.”

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Efficient project delivery using the example of fire monitoring
RSS GmbH develops individual solutions in the areas of environmental monitoring, resource management and digital cartography and therefore integrates the use of aerial and satellite images and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for national and international projects.

Read more about CLOUDEO Partner Reference Case: Fire Monitoring.

1.DESCRIPTION

As long as fire is under our control, it serves a lot of useful purposes, but, once it goes out of our control, it can create a lot of destruction. Wildfires in the vegetated areas of Australia, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, the tundra, forested areas of the United States and Canada have an effect on climate change, increasing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere and inhibiting vegetation growth.

In other areas of the world manmade fires like the slash-and-burn agriculture provokes fires and promotes the growth of flammable brush, creating a cycle that encourages more burning.

Fires generate ash, destroy organic nutrients, cause an increase in water runoff, and produce large amounts of CO2. To monitor these fires, identify their causes and define effective measures it is important to know exactly when and where the fires are occurring, which areas are affected and the intensity of fires and related CO2 emissions.

2. APPROACH

Remote Sensing Solutions GmbH (RSS) is a company known for environmental monitoring, resource management and digital cartography. RSS customers like governments and non-governmental organizations (NGO) require detailed information about the areas affected, the timing and the intensity of the fires and estimates of resulting CO2 emissions.

Remote sensing by satellites is the key technology that delivers basic data on fire and burned area monitoring in order to determine the source and the progress of fires. Of special importance is an in- time assessment of the burned area for providing a detailed proof of the localization of the fire and the affected land cover and land uses.

In order to fulfill this task, RSS has to quickly acquire recent data, and has to invest in processing infrastructure and according software licences.

To simplify this task for service providers CloudEO offers Geo-IT as a Service. It comprises fast data access of multiple vendors like Airbus Defence & Space, DMCii, DEIMOS, Intermap and many others, professional geo Software of Hexagon Geospatial Services, Trimble and Exelis Visual Information Solutions, and scalable processing power within a private cloud in a certified hosting environment. Latest technology is available, when needed and costs only occur when the service is used.

In addition, CloudEO offers the possibility to evaluate data in detail prior to buying. RSS used the CloudEO workbench to evaluate the benefits of fire monitoring for their customers. Through the private ftp on CloudEO they uploaded their RapidEye data and their analysis application which is based on ERDAS IMAGINE, IDL and eCognition. CloudEO and its partners provided the Software and the processing infrastructure. Within one hour RSS was able to use the CloudEO workbench without changing established workflows and technologies.

The data was analyzed using the significant processing power of the CloudEO workbench and a shapefile was generated that indicate the fire affected areas.

More information available at the following link
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With the direct receiving station VIGISAT, the only one of its kind in France, satellite radar technology puts itself at the service of scientific research, offering worldwide and detailed observation of both maritime and land environments, systematically and in all weathers.

This radar data, which reaches CLS in real time, enables the CNES and IFREMER subsidiary to be increasingly effective in terms of environmental monito- ring, maritime safety and sustainable management of marine resources. VIGISAT is a distributor of RADARSAT-1 and 2 data. VIGISAT is also capable of receiving radar data from the ENVISAT and ERS-2 satellites.

The maritime and terrestrial services VIGISAT provides include combating pollution and illegal fishing, supporting state action at sea, assisting with the development of re- newable energy, monitoring maritime traffic, monitoring of river catchment areas, monitoring of coastlines and mapping. CLS installed a radar system to combat illegal fishing of Antarctic toothfish in the Kerguelen Islands in 2004.

This system, operated by CLS in cooperation with the Re- gional Operational Centre for Supervision and Rescue (CROSS), has put an end to this scourge. French scien- tists and fishermen now have control of these areas and are confirming that the stock is regenerating.

It is this experience and expertise that CLS has made available in Metropolitan France, namely the technical means to use a vast range of radar satellite images to monitor and protect our oceans.
Thus CLS has deployed VIGISAT, a unique station for the reception and analysis of satellite radar images, located in the Technopôle Brest-Iroise Science Park, which hosts its radar applications division.
The VIGISAT receiving station includes an operational centre for real-time analysis of radar images of terres- trial marine applications.

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Increased sea levels and reduced freshwater reserves are the findings at the start of the century. But what is the scale of these phenomena and how can we properly measure the level of the sea on our coasts and the state of water systems and reserves on our planet? To answer this question, the French National Centre for Space Stu- dies (CNES) has assigned CLS with the PISTACH* pro- ject, a programme to provide increasingly accurate sea level measurement for coastal and continental waters.

*Prototype Innovant de Système de Traitement pour l’Altimétrie Côtière et l’Hydrologie (Innovative Prototype Processing System for Coastal Altimetry and Hydrology)

30 experts in altimetry and CLS developers have worked to im- prove the data collected by the JASON-2 satellite ocean obser- vation. In collaboration with LEGOS (the French space geophysics and oceanography research laboratory), Cemagref (the French research institute specialising in the sustainable management of land and water) and the IRD (Institute of Research for Develop- ment), CLS teams have improved the Franco-American satellite’s processing algorithms, enabling it to measure the level of the sea on our coasts more accurately and to provide improved unders- tanding and monitoring of our main water systems and lakes. In this way CLS is extending its sphere of knowledge from open ocean to coastal waters and thus improving its oceanographic
data and products for offshore operations, regional modelling and fisheries management.

Thus CLS can determine sea levels between 5 and 50 km off our coast to within as little as 1-5 cm and this can be done almost in real time!

Measurements by JASON-2 also allow the level of major lakes and river basins to be monitored regularly and globally, albeit less precisely than for the seas.

The global coverage provided by this satellite is of great benefit, since we know that very few measurement networks exist in situ, particularly in Africa, and that fresh water reserves such as Lake Victoria, may extend over several countries.

It represents a revolution in the field of hydrology, with data that enables monitoring and hence better management of freshwater reserves that are spread over various countries.

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The traveling exhibition which shows how the space activities and applications benefit our everyday lives on earth European Space Expo was held in Sofia between 16th and 24th of May 2014.

The exhibition is organized from directorate “Information Activities of the DG Enterprise and Industry of the EC and presents the current state of the programme for Earth Observation Copernicus and global navigation Galileo of the EU and ESA. ReSAC was invited from the organizers to make a speech on the application of the space technologies. On 20.05.2014 a lecture was made on the topic “Operational capacity in Copernicus and trans-border applications for South East Europe of the ReSAC and Agency for Sustainable Development and Eurointegration” in which scientific developments and operational services developed by the two organizations in the areas of environment, agriculture, forestry, disaster management and others were presented. On 25.05.2014 ReSAC presented in details the Copernicus programme – history, the current state and its future, as well as ideas on how Bulgaria could participate in the programme.

The activities of the Space professionals, scientists and stakeholders lead to a further step in the membership of Bulgaria in European Space Agency (ESA) and GEO.

With the decision of the Council of Ministers from 11th of June 2014, Bulgarian Government accepted the project for an Agreement of a PECS cooperating state between Bulgaria and European Space Agency. The activities and negotiations to sign the agreement are in the responsibilities of the Ministry of Economy and Energy.

With the Council of Ministers Decision from the same date Bulgarian Government accepted the Bulgarian membership in the Group of the Earth Observation – GEO through the Ministry of Investment Planning.

For more information:
Remote Sensing Application Center (ReSAC)
61, Tzar Assen Str., fl. 2, 1463, Sofia, Bulgaria. Tel: +359 2 980 0731 / Fax: +359 2 981 8216. “e-mail”:mailto:vassil.vassilev@resac-bg.org
http://www.resac-bg.org

(03July2014) The maximum peak height (MPH) algorithm (Matthews et al., 2012) has been released as a plugin for the BEAM toolbox.

The algorithm gives estimates of chlorophyll-a for near-coastal and inland waters as well as identification of cyanobacteria blooms and floating vegetation from MERIS L1B data corrected for Rayleigh effects. The processor was developed by Dr. Mark Matthews (University of Cape Town), Dr. Daniel Odermatt (Brockmann consult) and developer Tom Block (Brockmann consult). The original algorithm was modified to give improved performance in oligotrophic and glint affected waters, over floating vegetation, and flagging of pixels affected by the adjacency affect (Matthews & Odermatt, An improved MPH algorithm for the BEAM toolbox, forthcoming).

It has been validated using a global chlorophyll a dataset in the scope of ESA’s Diversity II project and is the best performing algorithm for eutrophic lakes. It should be of interest to many scientists working in spatially constrained and inland and near-coastal waters affected by cyanobacteria blooms.

The plugin called the MERIS MPH Processor V1.3.3 can be downloaded

ScanEx Image Processor software (SIP) developed by ScanEx RDC started to be distributed and used in Nepal

Four Nepalese companies all at once became new users of this software for satellite images processing. The software was supplied via the Indian dealer — SATPALDA (http://www.satpalda.com/).

“The Nepali market is quite saturated with software similar to SIP, but we foster big expectations from cooperation with ScanEx RDC. We are glad that on such a difficult market, competition-wise, we have been able to successfully offer an alternative software product, not inferior in its functionality to rival products, having the advantage of a higher performance and being user-friendly” — commented the deal Amit Seymour, of Business Development Manager of Satpalda company.

“This is a small but very significant step, confirming our intention to develop international cooperation and to promote our software worldwide. We plan to develop our presence in the Asian market, offering the most flexible and effective solutions to customers and distributors. We are grateful to our Indian colleagues for supporting us in our undertaking, “said Ilya Farutin, Head of the Ground Segment and Software Solutions Department of ScanEx RDC.

ScanEx Image Processor is the high-performance system with a wide range of possibilities for photogrammetric and thematic processing of remote sensing data.

Should you have any questions related to our software, please do not hesitate to contact us at software@scanex.ru.

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(May 2014) Geospatial World magazine awards Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and Airbus Defence and Space for satellite imagery distribution web portal.

Airbus Defence and Space along with the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) was awarded the Geospatial World Innovation Award for Technology Innovation in Big Data for the Dutch Satellite Data Portal, which enables the government of The Netherlands to disseminate satellite imagery to Dutch entities free of charge.

In March 2012, NSO, with support from Airbus Defence and Space’s Geo-Intelligence programme line, launched the Dutch Satellite Data Portal to provide broad access to satellite imagery over The Netherlands. The portal currently offers new imagery from the FORMOSAT-2 and Deimos-1/UK-DMC-2 satellites on a daily basis. Imagery is collected and made available for users to search and order within 24 hours.

Since its launch, imagery provided through the portal has been widely used for multiple applications, including precision agriculture applications that have led to increased end-user profits and reduced pollution from pesticides and deformation monitoring which has allowed engineers to track changes on the land surface from work taking place underground.

The GEO-Intelligence programme line at Airbus Defence and Space is honoured to have received this award alongside the NSO. We are committed to enabling our national customers, including The Netherlands, to efficiently and effectively manage and distribute their geospatial data.
Bernhard Brenner Head of the Geo-Intelligence programme line at Airbus Defence and Space

The Dutch Satellite Data Portal represents an important first step for additional services that will come online in 2015 as part of the operational phase of the Sentinel missions – part of the European Space Agency’s Copernicus programme.

The Sentinel satellites will collect data for a number of remote sensing applications in precision agriculture, soil movement, algae monitoring, water management and forest monitoring, and will be made available through the Dutch Satellite Data Portal.

The Geospatial World Technology Innovation Award was bestowed to Airbus Defence and Space and NSO during the Geospatial World Forum, which ran 5-9 May 2014 in Geneva.

Users can search this INSPIRE compliant web portal by visiting:
http://nso.datadoors.net/dd3

Dutch users may register by visiting:
http://www.spaceoffice.nl/nl/Satellietdataportaal/Registreren/