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Snapshot of Today’s Earth observation industry:

  • 136 satellites launched for civil Earth observation and 28 for GEO/LEO meteorology applications over 2003-2012 launched from 32 countries (6 new countries in last 2 years)
  • Majority of satellites launched from government space agencies; civil government investment reached $7.7 billion in 2012
  • Commercial data market totaled $1.5 billion in 2012: Defense remains by far the largest destination. Slower growth over last two years.
  • Reduced U.S. defense procurement expected in 2013, Non-U.S. defense and emerging enterprise markets driving growth

Satellite-Based Earth Observation: Market Prospects to 2022

The only source for comprehensive industry analysis & forecasts in the growing EO sector

Now in its 6th edition, Satellite-Based Earth Observation, Market Prospects to 2022 is the only report providing industry forecasts, assessment of business opportunities and analysis of the entire value chain for this growing segment of the satellite industry. It includes a detailed breakdown of application sectors within each region along with consolidated forecasts per application sector and per region

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Earth Observation: Defense & Security

The second Earth observation report focused on the defense & security markets

In the second edition of Euroconsult’s Earth Observation: Defense & Security, government attitudes towards imagery acquisition and satellite procurement are assessed in order to identify the preferred approaches to meeting defense requirements globally and to identify opportunities and risks for the commercial data industry.

Order the report

At Euroconsult, we’re very proud to be celebrating our 30th year providing space industry consulting and research. Should you have any questions, please contact us by replying to this message (reports@euroconsult-ec.com).

Source Euroconsult

(September 12, 2013) DMCii’s ambitious development and infrastructure enhancement plans have been enriched with the appointment of the new General Manager Martin Philp.

DMCii is a world-class provider of global daily satellite imagery for customers in more than 30 countries across the globe. Philp now manages a rapidly growing distribution and partner network for the company’s popular high frequency 22-metre Landsat-compatible satellite imagery and the provision of very high-resolution optical imagery and future products, including daily 1-metre optical capabilities.

Philp has a wealth of experience working with established platforms such as BBC iPlayer and Apple iTunes. The dynamic skill-sets that Philp’s noteworthy career offers, will act as a critical support to carry DMCii through these vast infrastructure improvements to ensure that they will continue to be regarded as a distinguished provider of fast and precise satellite imagery data.

Dave Hodgson, Managing Director of DMCii, said: “This is an extremely exciting time for DMCii, the appointment of Martin as General Manager will help lead our expansion into higher resolutions and future products with supporting infrastructure to deliver runaway growth.”

Philp was promoted from DMCii’s sales team after joining the company in July 2012. Before joining DMCii, he ran his own consultancy that managed growth and business systems projects for technology companies. Philp brings vast experience leading a series of growth orientated technology businesses in the global broadcast industry.

Source

(September 19, 2013) For the first time ever, DMCii offer:* All Africa Satellite Imagery for three consecutive years (2011-2013) * 22m multispectral satellite imagery for the whole African continent as a single fantastic dataset. * 50% price reduction until 20th December 2013 * Whole continent or individual countries.

African 2013 dataset © DMCii, 2013. All rights reserved

This world-class satellite imagery is cloud optimised with individual images covering an incredible 650km wide swath with at least 90% of land surface visible at a consistent width. This makes for easy processing and analysis and is available for half price until 20th December 2013. DMC data provides a reliable record of the African continent, ideal for establishing independent evidence of changes in:

  • Agriculture: Due to population trends or climate change
  • Landcover: Related to natural or human influences
  • Forest extent for REDD+ and GEO Forest Carbon Task
  • Desertification: Climate change effects
  • Water bodies: Lakes rivers, dams

DMCii’s satellite imagery is from a single sensor; other imagery can take up to 10 years to collect. Offer includes satellite images, from the whole African continent, like the one below, which shows detailed features from Fires in Okavango, Namibia.

Fires in Okavango, Namibia, Africa © DMCii, 2012. All rights reserved

Purchase this imagery now to receive twice the pixels per km² than Landsat with, with high resolution 22m GSD. This special-offer imagery has its radiometry cross-calibrated within 1% of Landsat and is on the same spectral filters as Landsat bands two, three and four, making it consistent and compatible with 40 years of Landsat data. This data can also be split into single country data sets, to enable for three years of accurate imagery to monitor year on year changes in:

  • National land-cover and infrastructure mapping
  • Agriculture, pests & diseases and Food security
  • Forest cover – REDD+ Monitoring Reporting and Verification
  • Rivers, lakes, dams or coastline
  • Fire scars
  • Urban extent
  • Mining – open cast mine expansion

In addition to this, DMCii are offering their customers the opportunity to plan ahead with confidence by signing up for continuity of monitoring until 2022. Contact DMCii today to get a competitive quote based on how frequently you need to monitor your country. At DMCii we want to make your job easier, by acquiring imagery to match your specific needs. Contact DMCii’s Sales Team to discuss your requirements and take advantage of our amazing HALF PRICE OFFER before 20 December 2013. Phone: +44 1483 804235 Email: Sales@dmcii.com

(Source DMCii)

The National Forest Strategy (2006-2015) of Bulgaria established the forest policy in the sector which reflects the global challenges as well as the agreements and directives related with the membership of Bulgaria in the European Union. These conditions lead to the need of establishment of a new effective system for multipurpose management of the forests, which needs new technologies and decisions to be implemented.

On the other hand Copernicus – the European Earth Observation Programme of the EU provides crucial environmental information (also on forests) based on the use of various types of satellite sensors. The Copernicus Core Services cover the whole Europe (for some products worldwide) and are developed in a centralized way, which purposes are to suit more to such organizations as specialized European agencies and directorates. On the other hand national and local users need more precise information both in relation to quality and reliability. Such products could be provided by the Copernicus Downstream Services, which are developed more and more in different areas: environment, forestry, natural disasters, ocean, climate, atmosphere etc.

EUFODOS Project, FP7 financed projects, aims at development of Forest Downstream Services for improved information on forest structure and damages. Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC as a project partner has developed several services for the Executive Forest Agencies (EFA), Bulgaria which will support the agency in its activities and reporting duties.

The first type of services are developed to support one of the main challenges outlined in the National Forest Strategy – forest inventory. The service delivers forest area map, forest type map and crown cover density map based on the HR and VHR images. This thematic information could be directly used in the forest management planning as well as in update of the national forest cadastre, the so called Forest Management Plans.


High scale forest area, forest type and crown cover density maps for the Tran Forestry, Bulgaria.

The second type of services is related with the information which EFA (and similar organizations) needs in case of natural and man made disaster in the forest areas. In the frame of EUFODOS, ReSAC has developed two main disaster related type of products: rapid mapping and detailed damage maps and databases. Although the rapid mapping is already covered by Copernicus through Emergency Response Core Service, the downstream services which ReSAC developed cover more specific needs of the local user and delivers detailed and focused information even for small scale disasters. Both types of products are developed for various disaster types: forest fires, storm breaks, snowfall/snowbreak, insects infestations.


High scale detailed forest damage maps for snowfall/snowbreak (Sredec Forestry) and bark-beetle infestation (Vitosha Forestry) Bulgaria.

For more information:
http://www.resac-bg.org
http://www.eufodos.info/

During late May and early June 2013, heavy rainfall hit Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Many rivers (Danube, Inn, Vltava, Elbe …) have caused severe flood damage across Central Europe. SERTIT has been producing rapid flood snapshot footprints over this large flood event using numerous Earth Observation satellite images for the insurance and re-insurance industries. For more information, please contact us.

(Zurich, 10 June 2013) PERILS AG, the independent Zurich based company providing industry wide catastrophe insurance data, has today announced the release of satellite based flood footprints for the ongoing floods in Central Europe which are affecting mainly Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic

The images, which PERILS will update over the duration of the floods, are based on radar and optical satellite data , and cover the Danube and Vltava – Elbe river basins.

Daily flood snapshots will be produced to facilitate the immediate assessment of the possible impact of the events. In addition, after the floods, a map showing the maximum extent of the flooding will be produced.

The flood footprints are in a geo-coded format and can be easily combined with other geo-coded data such as insured exposure information.

The images are part of the trial phase of a project to provide satellite -based flood footprints to the insurance industry and are sponsored by the European Space Agency. The map data are produced by SERTIT and Vista, companies offering Remote Sensing services. PERILS acts as the distribution platform for the data.

The satellite-based flood footprints can be viewed and down loaded free of charge from the PERILS website at www.perils.org/web/products/earth-observation

Commenting on the release of the images,Eduard Held, Head of Products at PERILS, said:“ We sincerely hope that the flood footprint information provided by PERILS will assist the industry in managing the consequences of the flood events currently impacting Central Europe. Our aim is to provide data which is of high relevance to the industry as a whole and which contributes to the better management and understanding of natural catastrophe risk.”

More information can be found on www.perils.org
PR Contact: Nigel Allen / +44 7988 478824/ nigel.allen@perils.org

July news on geospatial conference, meteorological support, wildfires, agro-control, …

Global Geospatial Conference 2013 – the joint GSDI 14 World Conference and AfricaGIS 2013 Conference – is being held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UN ECA) Conference Center, 4-8 November 2013. The conference theme is “Spatial Enablement in Support of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction”. “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions” magazine is the media partner of the conference.

The early-bird registration for the participants of the forthcoming 6th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions” will be over on July 20. Please be reminded that paying your registration fees within the early-bird registration period, you save more than 15%. Participation terms are available at the conference website.

There are only eight days left to the XXVII World Summer Student Games in Kazan. Weather forecasting services seriously prepare for this event too along with the athletes. They will have to provide very short-range weather forecasts for all of the sites, which will host the event. ScanEx RDC has developed and launched a new service specially for the Student Games in Kazan that streamlines access to images from weather satellites.

The western U.S. has been suffering from a series of wildfires in the last few months. The Black Forest Fire, the most destructive fire on record in Colorado, destroyed over 500 homes and charred more than 14,000 acres during a 10-day period. California has also been subject to a spate of wildfires with over 680 incidents in the state so far this year.

The geo-analytic system “AgroUpravlenie” (agro-control) for inventory and monitoring of agricultural lands has started to operate in the Tambov Region. This was made possible due to a long-term and fruitful partnership between “CentrProgrammSystem” LLC and ScanEx RDC, whose experience in creating highly detailed maps was used in “AgroUpravlenie” geo-analytic system.

“Nothing is impossible for a person with intelligence,” – quoted the well-known film Natalia Polyakova, Head of Institutional Initiatives Department of the “Russian Venture Company”, speaking about the features of the contract system in public procurement: – “We can cope with it too. However, I think it will be difficult.”

ScanEx RDC specialists held master-classes on field interpretation of space images in Arkhangelsk. Training was arranged within the framework of Youth School “Space Methods of Studying the Arctic Region”, organized by the Institute of Mathematics, Information and Space Technologies of the Northern (Arctic) Federal University.

Source

Born from the initiative of Planetek Italia in 2005, Planetek Hellas is now a well established company that moves from Greece and operates throughout Europe.

The company specializes in E.O. value added services, geospatial data infrstructures and research projects, also in Space sector, working for clients such as European Space Agency (ESA), European Commission and European Environment Agency (EEA).

On going projects are: GIO Land (EEA), ESA Science Archives Publication System (ESA), EO for UN, Dutch & Greek Police (ESA), Coastal Infrastructure Monitoring (ESA), Waste Management (ESA), eENVplus (EC FP7), G-NEXT (EC FP7), NFOFRAS & ISCM (Space Cluster).

See more at

26 June 2013 – Astrium, Europe’s leading space technology company, and CNES, have achieved a major improvement in Pléiades image quality, including sharper products and enhanced geometry.

Astrium Services will use a new algorithm developed by the French Space Agency (CNES) to automatically sharpen Pléiades’ satellite imagery. All data, archived or newly acquired when processed now will automatically feature this upgrade

A new algorithm, developed by the French Space Agency, provides images with better-drawn, neater contours, with a better understanding of the surface texture. These improvements greatly facilitate the analysis of the image (photo-interpretation) and also improve the accuracy of 3D models resulting from stereo taken images.

These gains encompass:

  • Better pan-sharpening (see examples below)
  • More accurate RPCs (Rational Polynomial Coefficient) improving ortho-rectification and stereoscopic quality
  • An almost perfect focal plane characterization

These modifications have been achieved by upgrading the Pléiades Ground Segment. All Pléiades 1A and 1B images processed now will be of better quality including archived data that is reprocessed.

Astrium Services and CNES work in a continuous partnership to improve the quality of images available. This collaborative approach will continue in order to track possible further improvements, throughout the life of the satellites.

Before and after treatment examples to be seen on Astrium-GEO

About Astrium
Together, pioneering excellence
Astrium is the number one company in Europe for space technologies and the third in the world. It is the only global company that covers the full range of civil and defence space systems, equipment and services.
In 2012, Astrium had a turnover over ?5.8 billion and 18,000 employees worldwide.
Its three business units are: Astrium Space Transportation, the European prime contractor for launchers, orbital systems and space exploration; Astrium Satellites, a leading provider of satellite system solutions, including spacecraft, ground segments, payloads and equipments; Astrium Services, the Space services partner for critical missions, providing comprehensive fixed and mobile solutions covering secure and commercial satcoms and networks, and bespoke geo-information services, worldwide.
Astrium is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2012, the Group – comprising Airbus, Astrium, Cassidian and Eurocopter – generated revenues of ?56.5 billion and employed a workforce of over 140,000.

Press contacts
Jeremy Close (Astrium UK) Tel.: +44 (0)1 438 77 3872
Gregory Gavroy (Astrium FR) Tel.: +33 (0) 1 77 75 80 32
Ralph Heinrich (Astrium GER) Tel.: +49 (0) 89 607 33971
Francisco Lechón (Astrium SP) Tel.: +34 91 586 37 41

During the INSPIRE Conference 2013 Planetek Italia has been assigned the AWARD for Academic Excellence and Innovation in INSPIRE related to the Small & Medium Enterprises (SME’s) for the innovative activities in the field of INSPIRE and SDI development.

This AWARD, promoted by the Technical Committee “Geographic information” of the European Committee for Standardization, CEN/TC 287, has been assigned for innovative parts of the developments made by Planetek Italia and lat/lon in the frame of the “Development of the technical components of the INSPIRE Geoportal at European Level for the Joint Resource Center (JRC) – Institute for Environment and Sustainability.

In particular the introduction of the concept of “anticipative counting” of potential results into the domain of spatial data infrastructures and the implementation of this feature on interface level through extensions of existing OGC protocols and INSPIRE standards have been awarded.

The work has been described and submitted to the CEN/TC 287 in the paper “Anticipative CSW-Counting enhances the Discovery UI” (authors Jens Stutte and Lyn Goltz)

Download here the paper submitted to the committee

Download here the complete Press Release

Go to INSPIRE Conference description page
See more at

OHB System AG, a member of the space and technology group OHB AG (Prime Standard, ISIN: DE0005936124), has today signed a contract with the Federal Office of Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support of the Bundeswehr (BAAINBw) for the development and integration of the “SARah” satellite-based radar reconnaissance system. The contract has a total value of EUR 816 million.

Thanks to the SAR-Lupe system, the Federal Republic of Germany has had capabilities of an international standard in global satellite-based radar reconnaissance since 2007. Developed and built by OHB System AG, the system comprises five satellites and a ground station. It was delivered to the customer at the end of 2008 and has been operating reliably and successfully with the involvement of OHB System AG since then. The contract governing the operation of SAR-Lupe expires in November 2017. In order to maintain its reconnaissance capabilities in the future, the Federal Republic of Germany is now planning the SARah follow-up system, which will be even more effective.

SARah will have a different architecture to SAR-Lupe with only three satellites in the space segment and two instead of one ground stations. Two of the three satellites will be based on the reflector technology which was developed for and has proven itself with SAR-Lupe and will be enhanced for SARah. It will be supplemented with a third satellite, which is a further development of the phased array technology developed by Astrium GmbH, which has also already proven itself in space and is currently being used on the civil satellite twins TerraSAR-X and Tandem-X. By linking these two radar technologies it will be possible to substantially enhance the efficiency of the overall system.

Under the contract signed today, OHB System AG will be responsible for implementing the entire system as prime contractor. In addition, OHB will be supplying the two reflector satellites and the main elements of the ground segment comprising the two ground stations. Under a subcontract, Astrium GmbH will be supplying the phased-array satellite and the related special functions for the ground segment.

The SARah ground segment is to be ready for operation in autumn 2016 in such a way that SAR-Lupe, which will still be operating at that stage, can be managed via this new system. SARah is to be delivered and enter into full operation at the end of 2019.

Contact for media representatives:
Steffen Leuthold
Corporate Communications Manager
Press spokesman
Phone: +49 421 – 2020-620
Fax: +49 421 – 2020-9898
e-mail: steffen.leuthold@ohb.de