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Toulouse, France. 9 July 2013 – The success of Astrium Services’ recent global GEO-Information Services Channel Partner conference programme has confirmed the key role that the reseller community plays in the company’s success across its three key business regions.


  • Channel partners are instrumental to support the promotion of Astrium Services’ unrivalled portfolio of products globally.
  • Three Channel partner conferences – hosting representatives from over 150 partners from across 50 countries- held to communicate commitment and breadth of company’s solution portfolio and unique differentiators for Value Added Resellers

Astrium Services recently organised three Channel Partner conferences – hosting representatives from over 150 partners from across 50 countries. Held in Bali to cover the Asia Pacific region, Toulouse for Europe, Middle East & Africa and Colorado for North America, Astrium Services took advantage of the platform to showcase the breadth of its satellite-based earth observation technologies, highlighting the value that organisations can gain from using Astrium geospatial solutions and services.

“Our three global channel events proved a tremendous success, helping the company strengthen its channel relationships, and creating an ideal forum for the geospatial community to engage, share market trends and exchange best practices across their different vertical markets,” commented Bernhard Brenner, Executive Director – Geo information, Astrium Services . “Effective channel partnerships play a key role in taking our business forward, and are instrumental in helping the company take its geo-information solutions to more customers across both our established regions and emerging markets globally.”

With three major satellite (Pléiades-1A/1B and SPOT 6) launches in under two years, and more to come with SPOT 7, Astrium Services is committed to remaining at the forefront of satellite-based earth observation technology and services provision. This platform provides its channel partners with unique and powerful differentiators, enabling them to develop compelling new business solutions and the ability to target new market opportunities. No other geo-information specialist, for example, is able to offer access to both optical and SAR assets – providing Astrium Services partners and their customers with an optimum combination of resolution, revisits and coverage.

Key Astrium products and services showcased at the events included:

  • TerraSAR-X with new acquisition modes available starting in the third quarter of 2013 (Staring Spotlight, Wide ScanSAR)
  • Pléiades VHR optical: 2 satellites now operational, offering a truly reactive, accurate and available twin-satellite constellation
  • SPOT 6 – redefining the benchmark for medium-resolution imagery. Update on SPOT 7 launch
  • Proven examples of how Pléiades, SPOT, TerraSAR-X are fulfilling customer requirements on a daily basis, and are setting new standards in terms of reactivity and acquisition capacity for Astrium Services partners and customers
  • Elevation1&4, 10, 30: an unmatched Elevation series of products with different level of accuracy and price points
  • GEOMaps product range: PléiadesMaps, SPOTMaps1.5, SPOTMaps2.5
  • Live demonstration of GeoStore, Instant Tasking services from GeoStore, Cloud Services and the brand new Partner Portal specifically designed for channel partners
  • Truly innovative and unrivalled solutions only available from Astrium Services – WorldDEMTM, Pixel and Street FactoryTM, Elevation 1&4

Bernhard Brenner adds: “our global channel conferences resulted in tremendously positive feedback from our partner community, particularly with the exchange of best practice ideas on how partners can build cost-effective geo-information solutions and services that can make a real difference for their customers and end-users. We’re already looking at dates for 2014 to repeat the exercise. In the meantime, we’ll continue to enhance our value proposition and are targeting further recruitment of complementary partners over the coming year”.

Through its GEO-Information business, Astrium Services is recognized as one of the leaders in the geo-spatial information market, not least thanks to the now fully integrated skills and resources of the former Spot Image and Infoterra. The company provides decision-makers with complete solutions enabling them to increase security, boost agricultural performance, maximize oil & gas or mining operations, improve their management of natural resources, and protect the environment. It has exclusive access to data from the SPOT, TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and Pléiades satellites, coupled with a complete range of space-based data sources and airborne acquisition capability allowing it to offer an unrivalled scope of Earth observation products and services. This extensive portfolio covers the entire geo-information supply chain, from the generation of images to the provision of high added-value information to end-users.

By leveraging the synergies and expertise available across the whole of Astrium Services, its GEO-Information teams develop innovative, yet competitive, custom-made solutions based on the combination and integration of Earth observation, navigation and high-end telecommunications.

Source Astrium Services

(17.05.2013) GAF provides state-of-the-art earth observation resources to create baseline data that support project activities in Maradi, Niger. Based on optical earth observation data with very high spatial resolution, products and services for an area of 34.500km² will be delivered in order to provide recent and objective information over the entire region.

International financial institutions (IFIs) provide financial support and professional advice for development activities on a local to regional scale in developing countries. Their activities are generally organized into dedicated projects financed by long-term loans or grants covering social and economic development aspects in a wide range of fields. For certain fields Earth Observation (EO) products and services have been identified as a useful tool to: support the monitoring and management of IFI projects; to improve the efficiency of the investments made; and finally to assess the impact and social benefits of the development activity that has been financed.

The European Space Agency (ESA), as part of its Value Adding Element (VAE) programme, has been interacting with various IFIs and their stakeholders to understand their working environment and information requirements, in particular for EO services. This process has resulted in service specifications for one specific user, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which has been put out for tender.

GAF has been selected to provide state-of-the-art Earth Observation (EO) resources to create baseline data to support project activities in the Maradi region of Southern Niger, a key area of IFAD-supported project activities in the country. Over an area of about 34.500 km², GAF will provide dedicated EO products which have been customised to meet specific user requirements in IFAD supported projects. The service and related products are based on optical satellite imagery from the German RapidEye system, which provides a very high spatial resolution. The specified EO-service will deliver products such as Land Cover Maps or Digital Elevation Models, which will be validated together with the service performance by the IFAD project team and local stakeholders. The benefit of this information service will be assessed according to the objectives of the project. The main purpose of this procurement is to provide recent baseline information over the entire region, in combination with a change detection analysis of one specific area in Maradi around the city of Aguié.

GAF’s activities in this project started in April 2013 and are scheduled to conclude in November 2013.
GAF_PR_201305_Niger_final.pdf

The service helps tourists to effectively protect themselves from solar radiation by monitoring the local environmental conditions. It allows them to get both information on solar radiation intensity in their holiday place, and advisements for sun exposure times and modalities, taking phototype into account.

Flyby provides HappySun, a new satellite based service devoted to tourism, which offers real-time information about UV solar radiation intensity, sea water temperature and transparency.

Tourists can then have a pleasant tanning, avoiding physiological damages due to overexposure to solar radiation, and can also fully enjoy their holiday by getting information about which areas are characterized by a more transparent sea, or a more pleasant sea surface temperature.

The service is available on Internet and on mobile phone (via SMS and MMS),

Happysun is based on data coming from different ESA’s (European Space Agency) Earth Observation satellites, which provide data regarding the characteristics of atmosphere, water and soil.

The service can cover all the Mediterranean Basin area.

To know more about the commercial service HappySun and learn how to use it in the areas where it is active visit: www.happysun.it

For environmental monitoring and protection agencies there is a special version of the service, called MedSun, which has been developed in collaboration with ESA. To learn more about it you can visit www.medsun.it

See also the 2008 service description on ARPA Sicily website

About Flyby
Flyby s.r.l. is an independent Italian SME company founded in 2001 with a special aptitude for applied research, in particular in the field of applied optics, with the aim of providing innovative commercial solutions, mainly based on the use of optical systems.

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The EIB is financing the construction of two sections of dual two lane motorway and associated access roads in Southern Poland (A1 and A4 Motorways). The realization of such large-scale infrastructure projects has a significant impact on the environment. It becomes thus essential for the motorway providers, to pay close attention to both assessing and minimizing the resulting impact.

EUROSENSE provided several EO based monitoring services which can support the management of EIB’s projects. For instance, a wide range of environmental information can be extracted from EO data, this way mitigation measures and construction works can be monitored using EO data.

Two different services were delivered. A first service focused on quantifying the impact of the motorways on the Natura 2000 and shadow sites, assessing changes in land cover between a time before the construction and a most recent reference year. A second service aimed at the monitoring of the progress in (i) construction works of the A1 & A4 motorways and (ii) environmental mitigation measures. The technical progress monitoring is required to enable the comparison of the performance of different companies working on the different sections.

Following EO based products were delivered: (i) Ortho-rectified satellite imagery (SPOT-5, 2,5m resolution) (before and after the construction) (ii) Land Cover map, change map and statistics (before and after the construction) and (iii) Infrastructure construction change map and statistics.


Land cover map, related to the Motorway A4, from Wieliczka to Brzesko (Poland)


Infrastructure construction monitoring and Progress statistics for Section 1, Motorway A1: Sosnica interchange (Poland)

The project showed to be a good starting point, especially to demonstrate to EIB what is/is not possible to monitor with EO data. In general, the EO based products form a uniform, standardized database, easy to update and allows easy comparison. The land cover and infrastructure construction maps can be used to calculate statistics and make queries with other digital geospatial vector in a GIS environment. Especially for remote, inaccessible areas where distances to the site are greater and more follow-up is needed, the EO based products contain valuable input for EIB.

The project was financed by ESA. ARCADIS Belgium was partner in the project.

For news concerning the Remote Sensing Application department click here

WorldView Global Alliance launches expanded product offering at User Conference

By Mid June at the WorldView Global Alliance User Conference a host of new offers and promotions were announced, including the capability to order GeoEye-1 and Ikonos data through the Alliance.

The two hottest days of summer brought together well over 150 technical experts and data users representing 50 countries for two days of networking and discussion. DigitalGlobe provided an update on their recent combination and announced the availability of their entire satellite constellation, including GeoEye-1 and Ikonos, to Alliance resellers.

This years’ conference format was designed to engage and inform users on the recent changes to the Alliance. Interactive feedback and mentored breakout sessions gave users the chance to give valuable feedback on the Alliance’s products, customer service, and product developments. Afternoon breakout sessions identified requirements, hurdles and future trends in the forestry, rapid response and mapping sectors. These results will help guide and direct changes to Alliance data distribution and future product development and we would like to thank everyone for their input.

Following these sessions the European Space Imaging marketing team announced new campaigns to support Alliance users, such as case studies and webinars. More information on how to participate will be provided soon.

A series of user case studies were presented following the challenging Quicktalk format (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide). These Quicktalk presentations were held by Geoserve, GISAT, ICON, Muncons and Totalview, and all highlighted the diverse application areas and solutions where VHR data can be used.

Another of the highlights were talks by international satellite industry experts including: Dennis Jones from The Jones Consulting Group giving a broad overview of the market and its history, Dimitrios Papadakis from SpaceTec Partners presented on the economic potential of the Copernicus program and Philippe Campenon from Euroconsult explored the market potential and developments for VHR data.

This year, due to both natural and man-made disasters, the value of VHR data to security and rapid response programs, whether for NGO’s working in Syria or for tracking ships for piracy, was shown in presentations from the Human Rights Watch and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

Overall, participants agreed this year’s conference offered a dynamic variety of expert presentations across all application fields and provided ample opportunities for networking and in depth discussion.

Source

12-13 September, 2013 – The Westin,Paris

The 5th edition of our Summit on Earth Observation Business will take place as part of our annual World Satellite Business Week (Sept 9-13).

Join over 250 top management and senior government officials from all worldregionsatthisuniqueinterna onaleventdedicatedtothe commercial satellite imagery and geospa  al informa  on business.

The summit will feature 10 intense plenary sessions welcoming over 40 high-level speakers to discuss the challenges and opportuni  es affec  ng each level of the value chain from manufacturers to end users.

A sample of sessions is given below:

  • The Enterprise User Forum on natural resources, maritime and LBS.
  • New priorities for the leading high resolution EO operators
  • Middle East & North Africa focus: Market dynamics & prospects
  • Data distributors: Always close to the end users
  • Investments and usage trends in civil government agencies

Combined with its rich social program and taking place in an in  mate, club-like atmosphere, the summit presents the perfect opportunity to assess customer requirements, refine development strategies, network and strike deals.

The Events Team
summits@euroconsult-ec.com
To find out more about the event or to consult the full program, visit our website or join our LinkedIn Group to receive regular updates.
We look forward to seeing you in September.

Source

(Matera, July 18, 2012) e-GEOS has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide, from the Matera Space Centre, satellite data acquisition and processing services in support of the operations of the first two satellites of the Sentinel constellation

Data from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 will be used in the European Union’s space-based Earth observation programme GMES

The contract, awarded to e-GEOS following an invitation to tender put out by ESA in 2011, which received bids from all the major European players in the sector, has a duration of seven years and is worth €10,000,000.

The agreement provides for acquisition services in X-Band as well as the installation and operation of the Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS). This will allow the reception, processing and archiving of Sentinel satellite data.

The choice of Matera represents a significant recognition of the competence and experience developed by the Space Centre over twenty years of activity with the Italian Space Agency (ASI), ESA and commercial operators.

The launch of Sentinel 1 – during 2013 – and then Sentinel 2 will mark the beginning of systematic and continuous radar and optical imager of the entire globe, with data processing times of less than three hours to guarantee monitoring services for the environment and security.

The large archive of data that will be produced will represent a unique and irreplaceable resource for the creation of operational services for the public administration and crisis management.

Press release (English)

  • Sentinel-1 is a polar-orbiting, all-weather, day-and-night radar imaging mission for land and ocean services. The first Sentinel-1 satellite is planned for launch in 2013.
  • Sentinel-2 is a polar-orbiting, multispectral high-resolution imaging mission for land monitoring providing, for example, imagery of vegetation, soil and water cover, inland waterways and coastal areas. Sentinel-2 will also deliver information for emergency services. The first Sentinel-2 satellite is planned for launch in 2013.

(June28, 2013) e-GEOS (ASI/Telespazio) just signed a contract for the setting up of a COSMO-SkyMed Receiving Station in Sodankylä, Finland, to be operated by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) as a part of the Finnish Ministry of Transportation and to become operational before the end of 2012.

This important agreement will provide Finland with COSMO-SkyMed direct reception capabilities over the Baltic and a large part of the Arctic areas to monitor ice formation and movements and Arctic changes.

The COSMO-SkyMed SAR Constellation, owned by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and commercially exploited by e-GEOS, offers a unique revisit capability and rapid access that can support near real time ice breaker’s requirements for maritime safety and transportation activities during winter navigation, for example, but also oil and gas exploration activity monitoring. The COSMO-SkyMed constellation can provide a revisit which cannot be matched by any other systems (i.e. up to 16 acquisitions/day over a specific target at 70°N latitude).

Satellite imagery with X-band SAR allows better detection, measuring and tracking of ice floes on a daily basis. In addition, it gives better information on the size and movement of potential ice features, as well as increasing the ability to forecast their movements.

Thanks to this new partnership, FMI will receive from e-GEOS the rights to distribute COSMO-SkyMed SAR data and develop new and enhanced services for Finnish citizens and Government Authorities. In exchange, e-GEOS will have the right to use the new Arctic station to exploit COSMO-SkyMed monitoring capabilities with new Near-Real Time services for its own key clients. Furthermore, while FMI will continue to serve its community and ice breakers with new and improved ice services, e-GEOS will be able to offer the same services to its world-wide customers, on an exclusive basis.

Furthermore, a joint research project over the North Pole can begin thanks to this new partnership: with the on-going global changes, the Arctic Community expects part of the North Pole to melt during the Summer and e-GEOS has already put in planning a routine monitoring activity to document the changes. COSMO-SkyMed is actually the only Constellation able to monitor the North Pole.

With the growing interests of the Oil and Gas sector in the Arctic, it’s clear that there is a high business development potential behind such Ice services for e-GEOS and the entire Arctic community. Business development, however, should not forget the environmental challenges that such new activities will bring as a consequence of an increased human traffic.

“The economic, political and scientific importance of the Arctic is rapidly growing. Also the role of the ice-covered Baltic Sea as means for transportation of raw materials and industrial products has become focal”, Petteri Taalas, Director General of the Finnish Meteorological Institute explains. “The combination of COSMO-SkyMed satellite information provided by e-GEOS and the high-level Finnish ice and weather service capabilities will offer excellent new opportunities for the provision of innovative services for the Arctic and the Baltic Sea. The northern area is facing the most rapid climate change, and therefore the satellite data provided by e-GEOS will also be highly beneficial for the climate and marine research.”

Marcello Maranesi, e-GEOS CEO also adds: “This agreement will be very important for the Artic community, which for the first time will be able to access COSMO-SkyMed with Near-Real Time delivery. Furthermore, established services such as ESAGMES MyOcean will benefit from this capability – particularly important now that ENVISAT is no longer operational. Finally, the agreement reached with FMI on Ice Charting services will also allow e-GEOS to enlarge its product and service portfolio by combining the e-GEOS Maritime Team’s know-how with FMI’s decades of experience in the ice domain for the benefit of the Oil & Gas and Maritime Transportation Industries.”

The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) is a modern service and research institute. The foundations of all FMI activities are anchored in extensive research and development as well as modern observation and IT technologies. FMI provides innovative and user-driven weather, climate, maritime, ice and environment services for a wide variety of public and private sector customers in Finland and worldwide. FMI is among the leading atmospheric research organisations in Europe. The expertise of FMI is widely used among national meteorological and hydrological institutes in all parts of the world. FMI has implemented development and consultancy programmes in almost 100 countries so far. FMI is an active participant in international R & D programmes funded by, e.g. European Commission, ESA, EUMETSAT, the Academy of Finland and Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. During recent years, FMI has been ranked as the best public-sector organisation in Finland.

e-GEOS is a joint venture of the Italian Space Agency (20%) and Telespazio (80%), a Finmeccanica/Thales company. With an overall revenue of about 80m€, and staff of 250 people, it provides a wide range of Geo-Information products, applications and services on the world-wide market, combining the unique capabilities of COSMO-SkyMed Constellation with other optical/radar satellite and aerial survey data. The COSMO-SkyMed Earth Observation Program of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Italian Ministry of Defence, based on a constellation of four VHR SAR satellites, provides all-weather, day and night, world-wide radar data acquisitions. e-GEOS is a world leader in maritime monitoring services, participating in the major international programmes, such as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), leading the MARISS project (Maritime Security Services, an ESA-GMES Service Element) and providing EMSA (European Maritime Safety Agency) CleanSeaNet oil spill detection services. Its maritime services go from the (NRT) monitoring, to Ship detection and tracking, Strategic Surveillance, coastal areas monitoring, critical route identification, and Oil spill.

Contacts:

  • Finnish Metereological Institute: Communications communications@fmi.fi
  • e-GEOS: communication@e-geos.it; telespazio.pressoffice@telespazio.com

Press release

The main missions of the VIGISAT station operated by CLS are to:

  • deliver satellite radar images;
  • provide near real time services in the fields of environmental monitoring, sustainable management of marine resources, maritime safety and other terrestrial applications;
  • assist the French and European authorities in their day-to-day state operations at sea.

The acquisition area for near real time satellite images has a radius of 2500 km centered on Brest (from Greenland to the Canaries and stretching from the Azores in the west to the Black Sea in the east).

VIGISAT was set up by CLS as a key part of its operational infrastructure

Products

CLS is the official French distributor for Europe of RADARSAT-1 & 2 satellite images.

The VIGISAT ground receiving station, which joined the network of receiver stations for the Canadian RADARSAT-1 & 2 satellites in 2009, can program, acquire and process images from these high-resolution radar satellites.

Services
With more than 20 years of experience in processing satellite data, CLS, a subsidiary of CNES and IFREMER, has staffed VIGISAT with a team of specialists internationally renowned for their expertise in processing, analysing and interpreting satellite radar images.CLS can thus offer advanced and tested software solutions for:
Detecting pollution spills
The VIGISAT ground station is a key tool for detecting pollution. Radar imaging satellites transmit radar data to VIGISAT from space in real time. These images can be acquired by day or by night in all weathers and analyzed to detect ships and traces of pollution. The authorities can then be informed in real time.
Combating illegal fishing
Satellite radar images are a key technology in the fight against illegal fishing. CLS has the expertise to exploit imaging satellites and provide effective resources to the fight against the illegal plundering of fish stocks. Experienced operators analysing satellite radar images can detect all the vessels in an area of interest. Their positions are compared with those reported by the VMS system used by ships licensed to fish in the area. By discrimination, this process identifies any illegal fishing vessels.
Monitoring maritime traffic
There is no doubt that VIGISAT is an indispensable tool for monitoring traffic. Its unique ability to provide global coverage of the activity over an area means that satellite imagery has become an essential component of the surveillance systems used by the authorities. Radar data makes it possible to measure the intensity of maritime traffic in key areas such as the English Channel, through the accumulation of images, and to estimate the overall density of traffic in larger areas. By cross-checking satellite information (coastal and satellite LRIT, VMS, AIS) it is also possible to identify illegal vessels or those posing a threat.
Detecting icebergs
CLS has developed a procedure capable of detecting the presence of icebergs and predicting their drift. The system was used successfully during the 2008-2009 Vendée Globe round-the-world race. On these radar images we can observe icebergs of significant size (>150m).
High-resolution measurement of sea states
The high-resolution monitoring of sea-states in real time has become a necessity nowadays. This information is indispensable for the authorities when they need to intervene, as well as for merchant shipping and leisure craft. Specialists from CLS analyse satellite radar images to observe and measure ocean swell. Satellite radar imagery is the only way of measuring complex cross-swell systems and visualising the complex propagation of swell surges in coastal areas.
Measuring wind fields to assist the offshore wind farm industry
Learning about wind conditions from radar data can help to improve several sectors of activity that depend on or are subject to variations in this natural element. CLS experts in radar imagery use data acquired by the VIGISAT receiver station to calculate high-resolution wind fields.

More info: vigisat-info@cls.fr


(03.06.2013) SMOS-Box version 2.3. released

This software adds a new processing-tool to the BEAM SMOS-Box that allows for converison of native SMOS data products to NetCDF 4.
In addition, the BEAM SMOS Reader Plug-in has been updated to handle SMOS-schemas up to version v05-02-01.

The installer for SMOS-Box 2.3 can be downloaded from the Beam download page

(03.06.2013) BEAM 4.11 released

The BEAM team is happy to announce that we have released BEAM 4.11 on June 03rd, 2013.

BEAM 4.11 is shipped with a number of new features, of which the most prominent are:

  • the Time Series Tool has been included into BEAM, allowing users to create, visualise, inspect, and analyse time series of EO data
  • the new Temporal Percentile Operator has been introduced; it allows users to perform multiple kinds of gap-filled, spatiotemporal percentile computations
  • a dedicated OPeNDAP client which provides an easy interface to arbitrary OPeNDAP servers has been added
  • NetCDF4 data export, allowing users to write compressed data in HDF5-based NetCDF4 format

Additionally, we have dropped and replaced some outdated parts of BEAM in order to keep it lean. It goes without saying that the new release also encloses a number of bug fixes, which can be inspected at our BEAM issue tracker

For a complete list of changes please refer to the changelog

The installers for BEAM 4.11 can be downloaded from the BEAM download page

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