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(June 2012) Written by Matt Ball , Sensors and systems. For decades the lack of geospatial data was a barrier to geographic information system expansion and adoption. While obtaining high-quality spatial data continues to be a challenge, the problems of a lack of available data has quickly turned into the need to manage a glut of information. With the number of sensors and platforms growing exponentially, the data deluge will only increase in pace.

The ability of geospatial technology to make sense of all of this data will prove to be of wide benefit to increasing number of end users. However, the old model of mapping and spatial analysis professionals at the hub of insight won’t apply, instead there will be services and automated systems that feed a broader understanding of place.

Content Explosion

It’s helpful to put the number of sensing devices and platforms into perspective:

  • the number of earth observation satellites continues to rise, with China illustrating that trend a few weeks when they launched four satellites in one week
  • the number of drones that the U.S. military deploys is now equal to one third of their aircraft, up from 5 percent in 2005
  • with the Federal Aviation Administration relaxation of laws on unmanned aerial systems (UAS), a proliferation of personal observation platforms is set to take off
  • the Global Satellite Navigation System constellations are increasing with Russia’s Glonass and China’s Compass improving precision and performance
  • smart phone purchases grew 49% last quarter according to Gartner, with these devices containing an increasing number of sensors to make sense of our surroundings
  • the number of sensors are increasing, with an Internet of Things approach that allows the devices to interact (see Twine and Cosm)

Together, this collection proliferation is termed Big Data, and with all this data there are increasing interests to quantify these inputs to get a better awareness about operations and to increase efficiency.

Real-Time Data Hubs

Earth observation is of particularly importance right now, with increased populations, reduced resources, and visible global change in climate patterns. The uncertainty of these changes, and their impacts on humans and economies, is being met with a new and more ubiquitous view on planetary patterns. With today’s satellite constellations and airborne platforms capable of imaging the same spot on the earth multiple times per day, we get a much more complete picture of our planet.

This ability is being met with new approaches that are illustrated at a few different scales.

  • DigitalGlobe’s Analysis Center shows the marketability of rapid insight and views of newsworthy topics.
  • The UN Global Pulse is mining data from the Internet and from phones to gain a better understanding of human well being across the planet.
  • China has made a commitment to create a national geographical conditions monitoring database by 2015.

Together these different approaches show a need and interest to harness multiple inputs for a real-time awareness of change in order to mitigate damage and impacts.

New Insight on Design

The combination of sensors and systems, and 3D data capture at high precision, is also helping to revolutionize our management and understanding of our built environment. With precise models of the as-built environment, along with sensors that return details on resource use and other factors, we gain a better handle on the full lifecycle of our structures. Inputs inform designs that return the highest possible performance, and constant monitoring lets us achieve the optimal operation. In the middle the new connectivity with a model-centric workflow, has a great improvement on construction efficiency.

These sensored systems are manifest at many scales, from the better heating and cooling of buildings, toward the better management of utility networks, and all the way to smart cities that include intelligent grids and transportation. The adoption of a smart city approach is a global phenomenon that will spur wider proliferation of sensors to address a wide array of city-scale problems.

Toward Automation

Looking back at the seeds of this new sensor and system approach there are a few industries and applications that foretell a whole new level of automation. With precision agriculture, farmers have long reaped the benefits of greater insight into local conditions at a fine scale through automated machines coupled to detailed digital models to improve crop yield. The broad geospatial industry can take cues from the progression in that sector as it’s moving from informing farmers toward the robotic automation of tools and systems.

Traffic sensors and feeds are perhaps the best example for the impact of real-time data coupled with nimble actors. Users of real-time traffic sharing applications such as Waze can expect great deal of time savings for their effort of monitoring and reporting conditions. However, here again we may see a large leap toward automation as today’s sensors have proven capable of driving cars without human control.

It will take years if not decades for the automation trend to take hold, if it does at all. In the meantime, the foundation that the geospatial technology industry has built to make sense of massive amounts of data is set to pay off.

Source Sensors and systems

GeoEye received word late last week that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) would be making a significant cut in their 2013 funding under the Enhanced View contract, offering only a three or nine-month option. While there is still some indication that Congress might fully fund the program, the news was bleak enough to send GeoEye stock falling more than twenty percent.

In this time of tightened government budgets, and unstable global economy, it’s tough on all businesses to remain stable, but combined with dramatic defense cuts, the pressures form a perfect storm for the U.S. commercial satellite imaging industry. The overwhelming defense demand has seen both companies grow strongly over the past decade, with capacity devoted mainly to this task. That strong demand has meant less of an emphasis on growing the commercial applications of this unique spatial intelligence, and without a broad base, some time will be needed to fill revenue gaps.

Global Prospects

The commercial satellite imagery business is uniquely constrained in that they have wide global prospects, yet government control on the quality of imagery that can be delivered. Additionally, the demand for this high-resolution imagery from other governments could match that of the U.S., but there are restrictions on which countries and entities can become customers.

Security is the overwhelming application of this technology, particularly in countries without a space program of their own. No company or industry can quite match that security demand, with the kind of deep pockets and urgency of need for quick supply of imagery. Interestingly, the demand only grows with an unstable economy, with more geopolitical hot spots now than in the recent past. If these companies operated in an unconstrained market, there would be no issue of revenue stability.

Pioneering Effort

It’s amazing to think back at the troubled start of both U.S. commercial satellite imagery companies, with failed launches at the outset. The profitability and performance of the companies over the past decade has been a phenomenal achievement, and one that has fostered international competitors that are still working to catch up in terms of imaging capacity and data delivery.

The U.S. commercial satellite imagery market has been world-leading, and continues to perform well in spite of recent issues. GeoEye has assured investors that they have the capital to continue with the launch of their next satellite, and to continue operations well into 2014, even with decreased funding. The weakened revenue picture does make them a target for takeover however, that will likely play out over the next few months.

Prospects

Given the security demand, it has been difficult for the companies to focus elsewhere where the revenues aren’t as promising, and where there’s a need for an ongoing effort to grow new markets. The combination of the foundation in security applications, as well as the promise of civilian applications, has always been a tough mix. The industry has always had to straddle the capacity and demand equation, and cost to produce versus the willingness to pay a premium for quality and currency of information.

With increasing amounts of geospatial information, imagery performs an increasing role of visual validation for trends coming from untrusted crowd sources. The unequivocal nature of high-resolution satellite imagery to validate the current conditions across the globe will have an increasing commercial interest for decision makers wanting to make better sense of changing conditions.

Regardless of the outcome of reduced government spending, that may lead to industry consolidation, the U.S. commercial satellite imagery market can feel good about its performance and prospects for the future. There’s no denying the value that it has provided for improved operations in global conflicts, as well as the intelligence it provides for improved commercial operations. Should government stability be returned, we can expect many years of strong market competition, leading to innovations as well as inroads in the commercial applications that will improve commerce.

Source

WASHINGTON — A projected 17-month-gap in some weather satellite forecasts later this decade could last even longer if a replacement satellite now being assembled can’t meet its launch date, an official with the Government Accountability Office said ending June 2012.

The satellite, known as the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), is crucial in tracking hurricanes, tornadoes and other weather phenomena. The tracking gives emergency officials time to prepare and react, according to officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The current orbiter, launched last year, is scheduled to retire in 2016. NOAA officials are predicting it will be at least 17 months before its replacement would be operational in 2018.

“In our opinion, this is a best-case scenario,” David Powner, director of GAO’s Information Technology Management Issues, told House lawmakers sitting on two House Science, Space and Technology subcommittees. “If (the current orbiter) lasts less than five years and if the JPSS launch date slips, this gap could be greater.”

So what’s the worst-case scenario? Fifty-three months, according to GAO.
Complicating matters are cost overruns that have forced NOAA to readjust the program and scale back in other areas.

“We have witnessed Herculean efforts … to get problems under control,” said Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y. “Frankly, despite these efforts, we have not had much to cheer about with JPSS.”

Officials said there also may be gaps in data provided by other weather satellites operated by the Pentagon and European agencies. GAO is warning that those gaps could affect timely forecasting. “thereby risking lives, property and commerce.”

NOAA Deputy Administrator Kathryn Sullivan agreed a number of challenges remain but said “significant progress has been made” to contain costs and meet the launch schedule.

GAO’s warning comes as the number and capability of weather satellites circling the planet “is beginning a rapid decline” and tight budgets have significantly delayed or eliminated missions to replace them, according to a National Research Council analysis released last month.

The number of in-orbit and planned Earth observation missions by NASA and NOAA is projected to drop “precipitously” from 23 this year to six by 2020,based on information provided by both agencies, the report found. As a result, the number of satellites and other instruments monitoring Earth’s activity is expected to decline from a peak of about 110 in 2011 to fewer than 30 by the end of the decade.

When a similar analysis was issued five years ago, eight satellites were expected to be in space by 2012 tracking a variety of conditions, such as global precipitation, ocean topography and carbon emissions. Only three are now in orbit.

Of the remaining five, two failed, one was canceled and two others are not expected to launch until at least next year.

The pipeline looks emptier over the next decade.

Of the 18 missions recommended in the 2007 report through 2020, only two are close enough to completion to register launch dates.

“Source”: http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20120627/SPACE/120627025/GAO-17-month-gap-weather-forecasting-best-case-scenario-?nclick_check=1&goback=.gde_3702_member_128865312
Contact Ledyard King at lking@gannett.com

The Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation (CEOI) has approved funding for ten instrumentation projects to be carried out by teams from UK industry and academia. The overall investment is in excess of three quarters of a million pounds, including parallel industrial PV. In total, 16 academic and industrial organisations are involved.

The largest of the projects – to prove the integration of highly sensitive receivers for future climate and meteorology missions, builds on existing CEOI work on passive microwave technologies. Here, STFC-RAL and STAR-Dundee are collaborating to advance development of a novel high-resolution wideband spectrometer and to undertake critical system-level design and breadboarding activities. This will lead to full integration of a sideband-separating receiver with high-resolution spectrometer into the MARSCHALS millimetre-wave airborne instrument, thus proving its suitability for future space missions. See the project page for more information.

Two projects are developing technologies for the next generation of the Eumetsat meteorology mission – ‘MetOp Second Generation (MetOp-SG)’.  Astrium is leading a project to improve the technologies for the microwave sounder instrument, which will provide measurements of atmospheric temperature and humidity – see link for further information.  In a second project for MetOp-SG, SEA Ltd is studying the implementation options for an Ice Cloud Imager instrument, which will provide measurements of cirrus clouds, one of the most important gaps in monitoring the atmosphere – see link for further information.

Other projects will help germinate ‘seedcorn’ ideas for space instrumentation. In one of these, Gooch and Housego – an optical technologies company, are working with SSTL to conduct an assessment of new low weight mirror fabrication techniques. Reducing the weight of mirrors for space applications, whilst retaining the required stability of surface form is important and the project aims to investigate alternate methods to achieve this. See the project page for more information.

The other funded projects will be conducting investigations into areas such as systems integration, radar developments and imagers and other mission critical technologies. Further information on the Seedcorn projects can be found via this link

Since its inception in 2007, the CEOI has been responsible for many innovative and exciting technology developments in EO instrumentation. As well as serving mission critical needs, CEOI technologies help address important environmental issues, such as monitoring climate change and the environment. Additionally, many have spin-out potential into other industries, such as defence & security, telecoms, analytical instrumentation, healthcare and environmental.

Notes for Editors
Contact: Prof Mick Johnson, Director
Centre for EO Instrumentation
Tel: +44 (0)1438 774421
Email: mick.johnson@astrium.eads.net
Web: www.ceoi.ac.uk

Centre for EO Instrumentation

The Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation (CEOI) was established in 2007 in order to realise an excellent, internationally-competitive national Earth observation instrument and technology research and development programme. The CEOI is funded by the UK Space Agency (UKSA) and is a partnership between Astrium, QinetiQ, STFC/RAL and the University of Leicester, led by Astrium. The CEOI strategic goal is to become the driving force in the UK for the development of world class instrumentation for national and international EO missions. It will achieve this by funding, via a series of Open Calls, science-driven instrumentation projects from teams led by UK Principal Investigators. The intention is to exploit the UK technological capability in industry and academia from both the space and non-space sectors, with the aim of positioning UK consortia for flight opportunities in international space missions.

Measuring the sea-surface temperature (SST) across regional and global scales is important for improving weather and ocean forecasting and climate change research.

Satellite measurements provide a consistent and global view of SST at high resolution.

The past, present and future of SST measurements came into focus last month at the 13th Science Team Meeting of the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST). Held in Tokyo, Japan, the meeting brought together international scientists and space agency representatives that maintain the provision of SST data for science and operational services.

In Europe, ESA started monitoring SST in 1991 with the launch of the first European Remote Sensing satellite, ERS-1. The Envisat satellite, launched in 2002, ensured continuity of SST measurements. The next ESA mission foreseen to continue the dual-view SST dataset is Sentinel-3 (Planned for launch in April 2014), being developed under Europe’s Global Monitoring and Environmental Security (GMES) programme.

Read more at ESA website

Astrium GEO-Information Services encourages the development of innovative products and applications using radar satellite data, specifically TerraSAR-X’s X-band data.

The ideas submitted must be truly inventive, offer a clear benefit (e.g. for the environment, security, or specific industries…), and build on the unique features radar satellite data offers. They may also include the integration of data or information from additional data sources, such as satellite imagery from other commercial or public sensors.

You can download TerraSAR-X sample data here

Prize: The winner will receive a data package (radar and/or optical satellite data) worth EUR 25,000 and operational support to help advance their idea.

Evaluation: Please note that in order to determine the winner of the Astrium Radar Challenge, finalists may be asked to participate in an interview (in person or by telephone/video conference) during the week of 24-28 September.

Source

“Eye on Space” is the 4th in an existing series of brochures featuring EU Space Research co-projects funded by the European Commission and managed by REA under the FP7 and mainly in the domains of GMES and Strengthening Space Foundations (SSF).

In a view of continuity, the publication is produced to include the 32 Space Research projects supported mainly under the 4th FP7 Space call.

The electronic version of the brochure can be downloaded from the Europa website.

Read more…

(Source European Commission)

The European Space Agency hosted an industry workshop in ESA-ESRIN in Frascati, Italy on 23rd and 24th of February 2012. This note provide a link to the final report.

Earth Observation (EO) data and services can deliver significant benefits to the scientific, public and private sector communities and this workshop examines the potential value of this data to the insurance industry. This will be a unique gathering, bringing together colleagues from the Insurance and Reinsurance communities with the Earth Observation community to address real challenges that we face in the drive to realise the benefits of using EO information in global insurance processes and products.

Workshop Objectives

  • To ensure that the re/insurance community is aware of current and new generation Earth Observation capabilities
  • To provide an opportunity for key personnel from both insurance and space industries to exchange ideas and develop new possibilities
  • Identify blockages to increased uptake of Earth Observation based services, short and long term
  • Develop ideas for new innovative Earth Observation products relevant to the Re/insurance industry
  • To communicate Re/insurance requirements to satellite operators and service providers, so that the space sector can work to meet these requirements

Please find attached the Final Report for you to download in pdf

Source ESA

(25 June 2012) In Southeast Asia, the island of Borneo is home to one of the world’s most diverse rainforests, but its natural resources are under threat.

Information from satellites is being used to evaluate the impact of the island’s future development.

The mountainous island is the third largest in the world. It is an area of exceptional biological diversity and its natural resources have tremendous social and economic value at local, national and global levels.

While still of great importance, these resources have diminished in recent years due to logging, plantation development, mining and forest fires.

“The ecosystems in the heart of Borneo provide many local, regional and global services and benefits,” said Anna van Paddenburg, Sustainable Financing and Policy Strategy Leader for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia.

“The mountainous forests form the headwaters of most of Borneo’s 20 major rivers, providing water for agriculture, human consumption, and industry.

“The forests provide timber and non-timber forest products, and store huge amounts of carbon.

“The diverse ecosystems support endemic plants and animals, which supports eco-tourism and pharmaceutical research.”

While it is widely recognised that healthy ecosystems provide services that play a critical role in maintaining individual and societal welfare, the benefits that flow from them are not always accounted for in government and private sector decision-making.

In an effort to protect the environment and develop the area in a sustainable way, the Heart of Borneo conservation agreement was initiated by WWF and signed by the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei in 2007.

In December 2010, WWF initiated an assessment of Borneo’s natural capital to quantify and understand the value of ecosystem services and benefits.

ESA provided technical assistance through Hatfield Consultants, a Canadian environmental and geomatics consulting company that has been working in Indonesia for 20 years, and NEO BV, a value-adding data provider.

The consortium closely collaborated with WWF and scientists from the Natural Capital Project and the consulting agency Witteveen+Bos.

Satellite data from different ESA projects were used to build development scenarios. Among the sources were global land cover data, which show changes in land use in Borneo.

Plans and permits for plantation, forestry and mining were used along with historical trends in land use to map contrasting Business-as-Usual and Green Economy scenarios.

The Business-as-Usual scenario for forest cover projects a loss of 3.2 million hectares of primary and secondary forest cover on the island between 2009 and 2020. This is primarily due to palm oil expansion, mining and unsustainable forestry practices.

Implementing the Green Economy projection would reduce the loss of forest cover to an estimated 0.1 million hectares.

The scenarios were derived from the assessment of gains or losses of ecosystem services using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem System Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) models, which were developed by Natural Capital Project.

InVEST models include water yield, water purification, sediment retention, carbon sequestration, habitat quality and biodiversity.

The team used several InVEST models, for example to demonstrate that central Borneo provides water to 70% of the island’s population.

InVEST models were also used to demonstrate how water quality is affected by large-scale palm oil development, since there is increased nitrogen export due to extensive fertiliser use.

(source: ESA)

(6July2012) Extreme weather such as hurricanes, floods and even excessive heat or cold claims lives every year.

The European body that monitors weather and climate from space has now joined international partners to help prepare for disasters.

The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites – Eumetsat – formally became the newest member of the International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters’ on 5 July.

Founded by ESA and the French and Canadian space agencies, the Charter is an international collaboration between the owners and operators of Earth observation missions to provide rapid access to satellite data to help disaster management authorities in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

Through the Charter, satellite data were used to create maps and aid rescue efforts following recent disasters such as the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the February 2011 earthquake in New Zealand and the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Eumetsat operates a constellation of meteorological satellites, monitoring the atmosphere, oceans and land surfaces to deliver weather and climate-related satellite data, images and products.

As the charter’s newest member, Eumetsat will act as a coordinator for securing access to Eumetsat data for the members and beneficiaries of the Charter and the redistribution of products of the Charter via GEONETCast.

Given that other GEONETCast operational partners, such as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are already part of the Charter, Eumetsat’s participation demonstrates and ensures full visibility of the cohesive contribution of the meteorological satellite community in support of disaster management, as achieved through GEONETCast.

Eumetsat already provides information to the National Meteorological Services in countries around the globe, supporting their disaster management activities.

Eumetsat is now the 14th member of the Charter. Other recent new members include Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, the German Aerospace Center and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Russia’s space agency has also made a request to join.

(source: ESA)