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(WASHINGTON, Feb. 18, 2011) The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) have agreed to formally explore trengthening their cooperation in areas of common interest.

A letter of intent signed by Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator, and Dominique Ristori, JRC Director-General, expresses the organisations’ interest to further explore and propose cooperative activities in the following fields:

  • Earth Observation Data Collection, Quality Control and Sharing
  • Environmental contaminants and effects in the marine environment
  • Promoting coastal activities within the Group on Earth Observations (GEO)
  • Defining downstream services on marine and coastal issues for public administration and policy support
  • Development of a common global/regional modelling and analysis tool for coastal hazards and extreme events
  • Space weather, disaster monitoring, and crisis management
  • Climate change, climate services and climate change monitoring, within GEO
  • Atmospheric and air quality monitoring such as for volcanic ash events and the applications of atmospheric dispersion modelling techniques.

A NOAA/JRC coordination group will be established to follow up these cooperation proposals. It will build on the longstanding relations between the two entities, which have been working together for over 20 years in the field of Earth observation, including topics such as ocean colour, hydrology, sensor calibration and validation, involvement in the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, and in the Group of Earth Observation.

NOAA & JRC mission and vision

NOAA’s vision of the future is: healthy ecosystems, communities, and economies that are resilient in the face of change. NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts; to share that knowledge and information with others; and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.

The JRC’s vision is to be a trusted provider of science-based policy options to EU policy makers to address key challenges facing our society, underpinned by internationally-recognized research. Its mission is to provide customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, and implementation and monitoring of European Union policies.

Links

US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
European Commission’s Joint Research Centre

Copyright 2011 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved
2011-02-18.
SOURCE European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC)
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The Sentinel satellites that are being developed to yield data for information services through Europe’s GMES programme also have great potential to advance our understanding of Earth.

Scientists gathered recently to discuss how to get the most out of these missions.

The Sentinels for Science workshop, held at ESA’s Centre for Earth Observation in Italy, set the stage for more than 200 scientists to analyse and prioritise how the various data products from Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 could be put to scientific use.

Headed by the European Commission, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme will provide accurate, timely and easily accessible information to improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and help ensure civil security.

Within the framework of this ambitious Earth observation initiative, ESA has been tasked with developing the five new Sentinel missions specifically for the operational needs of the programme.

While the aim is to deliver data to feed into GMES information services, the Sentinels could also be of great benefit to science.

Volker Liebig, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes said, “The range of sensors carried on the different Sentinels, their ability to provide global coverage and rapid revist times coupled with our commitment to providing long-term data, make these missions highly relevant to gaining a deeper insight into the processes and interactions that make up the Earth system and its changes.

“In order to exploit GMES fully, we need constant feedback of science. This will lead to many new applications, as we have seen with Envisat and other satellites.”

The first Sentinel is planned to launch in 2013. It is a C-band imaging radar mission to provide an all-weather day-and-night supply of imagery of land and ocean surfaces. Sentinel-1 will be followed by Sentinel-2, which carries a multispectral high-resolution optical instrument to monitor vegetation changes. Sentinel-3 carries a multiple instrument package to measure different ocean variables and monitor land.

All three missions will be made up of two identical satellites orbiting as pairs.

Josef Aschbacher, Head ESA’s GMES Space Office noted, “The sentinel data contain crucial information for all Earth sciences, especially climate-change related questions that need long time series.”

Workshop participants also talked about the complementary and synergistic retrieval of data from the Sentinels with that acquired by other Earth observation missions.

The success of the workshop has clearly paved the way for further investigation into how the Sentinels can be of maximum benefit to all users.

The workshop forms part of ESA’s study on Sentinels for Science, or ‘SEN4SCI’, managed by the Remote Sensing Laboratories at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

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Fleming Gulf, the leading provider of specialist information and services for the academic and scientific, professional and commercial business communities globally, is delighted to announce a new addition to our Geospatial event portfolio, the launch of our Middle East Geospatial Summit.

Meet your geospatial peers!

Read Interview now

The Summit will provide an excellent opportunity to meet and network within the Middle Eastern and international geospatial community. Through keynote presentations, panels and case studies, the speakers at this event will share their insights about the use of geospatial intelligence in the region and beyond. The event will cover the latest technological advances as well as the new ways of using Geographic information in society, the integration of new real time measurements and it’s impact on end user capabilities, the emergence of Web oriented systems, IT interoperability, standardization as a means of creating a simple integrated platform that could reach billions of people. The event will also cover the latest on collaboration across organizations in the region.

Key speakers

• Professor Mike Jackson, Centre for Geospatial Science, University of Nottingham, UK
Board Member OGC, Director
• Dr. Ahmed El-Rabbany, P.Eng., Professor, Geomatics Engineering, Graduate Program Director, Department of Civil Engineering, Ryerson University
• Dr Omar Al-Emam, Arab Science and Technology Foundation
Space Technology Consultant
• Senior representative from the OGC
• Mansoor Al Malki, Qatar Statistics Authority,
Director
• Dr Basyoni A Abdul Rahman, University of Bahrain, Department of Social Sciences
• Bhupendra Jasani, Department of War Studies, King’s College
Visiting Professor
• Sarah El-Khazin Bouvier Senior Consultant, Regional Office for the Middle East UN OCHA

For panelist and speaking opportunities please contact:
Andrea Krizsak. Project Manager
andrea.krizsak@flemingeurope.com
T: +36 1 41 118 42

Key topics

Through keynote presentations, panels and case studies, the speakers at this event will share their insights about the use of GIS in:

  • Defence and Intelligence
    + Emergency Management
  • Crisis response
  • Infrastructure and Utilities
  • Construction and Engineering
  • Governance
  • Oil and Gas Exploration

Testimonials

Who should attend

Chief Analyst, Air Attache, VP Business Development, Adviser, IT Officer, GIS Business Development Manager, Consultant, Expert, Managing Director, Geospatial Engineer, D&I Industry Director, Head of GIS Department, Head of Research, Defence and Security Key Account Manager, Director, Marketing Director, Professor, Presales and Bid Manager, Chief of Branch

Summit participants in 2010 in Vienna included

Abu Dhabi Police, Arab Science and Technology Foundation, EADS, Arabia, Association of Chief Police Officers, BM Landesverteidigung, Centre for Geospatial Science University of Nottingham, Defence Geographic Centre, Digital Globe International, Embassy Diplomatic Mission, ESRI, EU Military Staff Intelligence Directorate, Eurimage, European Union Satellite Centre, European Space Imaging, Federal Office of Topography, French Ministry of Defence, GBR AR, Ministry of National Defence Command of Mapping, Geo 212 France, Geoapikonisis SA, Geographic Inc, German Armed Forces, Graphitec, HUNAGI, Hydrographic Institute, Iki Nokta, Institut Geographicque National, Intecs, Intergraph, Intermap, Join Aeronautical & Geospatial Organisation UK, Kartographe Huber, King’s College, Kor Oil Company ,Geo KOD, Lantmateriet, Lockheed Martin, Military Geography & Meteorology, University of Defence, Military University of Technology, Ministerstvo Vnitra Policejnt Prezidium, Ministry of Defence UK, Ministry of Interior, Northrop Grumman, ORBIT, Ordnance Survey, Rapid Eye, Regio, ITT Research Systems, Russian Space Systems, Spacemetric, SRI of Precision Instruments, TeamNet International, Tele Atlas, Terra, The Agency for Real Estate Cadastre, Ulusal CAD & GIS AS, University of Munchen, UNOSAT, US ARMY Geospatial Centre, TASC

Source

The 34th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment is happening this week in Sydney.

The theme of the symposium is The GEOSS era: towards operational environmental monitoring, and contains five parallel streams: Earth observation supporting disaster management and situational awareness; Briefings from space agencies; GEO forest carbon; Space policies; A panel on climate and water, and; A vision for the future.

With 800 abstracts and 600 attendees from more than 60 countries – including 35 attendees from NASA – the symposium will officially run at the Exhibition Center until April 14, but there is also a number of side-meetings and post-symposium workshops until April 15.

Instead of posters, the symposium this year is using electronic presentations that will enable speakers to present their digital papers at programmed times, but also at other times for those who may have missed a presentation of interest.

The hosts of the symposium are the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute in Australia (SSSI), the International Center for Remote Sensing of the Environment (ICRSE), and the CSIRO.

The platinum sponsor is NASA, the gold sponsors are ESA and ESRI, and the silver sponsors are Digital Globe and Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

For more information visit http://www.isrse34.org/

Discover the Earth observation satellites and their applications for environment and security of the citizens.

Propose ideas for a pedagogical exploitation in the classrooms. These are the two main objective of the blog “Another look at the Earth” (Un autre regard sur la Terre) created and hosted by Planète Sciences Midi-Pyrénées. Combining images acquired by satellites, didactic explanations and possible exploitation in classroom, the articles are aimed at both public and teachers.

All environmental domains are addressed: management of natural resources, climate change, crisis and natural disasters, deforestation, agriculture, urbanization, etc. Each article addresses an environmental theme, an image acquisition or processing technique f and the scientific concepts involved.

200 papers have been published and the blog is now well ranked in the search engines.

The blog “Another Look at the Earth” is an initiative of the association Planète Sciences Midi-Pyrenees and its volunteers. Its content is derived from information provided by its scientific and industrial partners. All inputs from EARSC members are welcome.


Fig. An impressive algal bloom in atlantic ocean near Aquitaine coast. This Envisat image acquired on the 6 of April is a good opportunity to explain the role of ocean color sensors. Credit:European Space Agency (ESA)

Even is the contributions are published in French, visitors from 140 countries read it. First countries are France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Morroco, Algeria and Tunisia but also Germany, United States, Spain and even Japan, Israel or Vietnam

The address of the website

Discover the Earth observation satellites and their applications for environment and security of the citizens.

Propose ideas for a pedagogical exploitation in the classrooms. These are the two main objective of the blog “Another look at the Earth” (Un autre regard sur la Terre) created and hosted by Planète Sciences Midi-Pyrénées. Combining images acquired by satellites, didactic explanations and possible exploitation in classroom, the articles are aimed at both public and teachers.

All environmental domains are addressed: management of natural resources, climate change, crisis and natural disasters, deforestation, agriculture, urbanization, etc. Each article addresses an environmental theme, an image acquisition or processing technique f and the scientific concepts involved.

200 papers have been published and the blog is now well ranked in the search engines.

The blog “Another Look at the Earth” is an initiative of the association Planète Sciences Midi-Pyrenees and its volunteers. Its content is derived from information provided by its scientific and industrial partners. All inputs from EARSC members are welcome.


Fig. An impressive algal bloom in atlantic ocean near Aquitaine coast. This Envisat image acquired on the 6 of April is a good opportunity to explain the role of ocean color sensors. Credit:European Space Agency (ESA)

Even is the contributions are published in French, visitors from 140 countries read it. First countries are France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Morroco, Algeria and Tunisia but also Germany, United States, Spain and even Japan, Israel or Vietnam

The address of the website

SPOT 1, launched in 1986, was designed to observe cities, roads, farmlands, natural disasters and other features on Earth’s surface. The first major evolution came with SPOT 4, launched in 1998 helping foresters and farmers to assess and better manage forest and crop health. The second major evolution came in 2002 with SPOT 5, which acquires Earth imagery at a resolution of 2.5 m., a key advantage for close observation of vast territories.

Since February 22, 1986, SPOT satellites have been keeping a watchful eye on the Earth. For over 25 years, this series of optical observation satellites has been providing images of our planet for an extensive range of applications, such as cartography, crop forecasts, geological exploration, and disaster management.

All five of the SPOT satellites were developed and built by Astrium as prime contractor, responsible for the platform and high-resolution imaging system. Currently, the SPOT satellites are operated by Astrium GEO-Information Services, formerly Spot Image.

The multi-mission SPOT platform series, initially designed for the French space agency CNES, is recognized as an industry standard. Today, a similar platform is in use for nearly all the European low Earth orbit observation satellites, including the Helios military surveillance satellites, the ERS radar satellites, the environmental monitoring Envisat, and the MetOp weather satellites.

The success of the SPOT series dates back to its earliest days with SPOT-1, launched February 22, 1986 on board the last Ariane 1 rocket. It had been projected to have a three-year lifetime, but actually served 18 active years, providing nearly three million images before being conscientiously de-orbited and then disintegrated to best respect the space environment in November 2003.

SPOT-1 represented a technological leap in the field of Earth observation, in that it could produce images of unprecedented precision with a resolution of 10 meters, hitherto unparalleled for a civil satellite. Just three days after its launch, the satellite returned its first images, proof of remarkable performance.

SPOT-2 was launched in January 1990, and SPOT-3 In September 1993. As in the case of its big brother SPOT-1, the decision was also taken to deorbit SPOT-2, and after 19 years of successful operation, the mission finally came to an end in July 2009. SPOT-3 was withdrawn from service in 1996 following a technical problem.

Two SPOT satellites are currently in operational use, allowing daily observation of virtually any point on the globe: SPOT-4, launched in March 1998, produces 10-meter resolution images and SPOT-5, launched in May 2002, delivers a resolution of up to 2.5 meters over an extended observation swath.

SPOT-5 is a major force in the satellite imagery domain, with an impressive 80% share of the world market for two-meter-range imagery. To ensure long-term continuity in high-resolution data while competition gets ever tougher, Astrium decided, in March 2009 to launch a new project with private financing, AstroTerra. This aims to put the SPOT-6 and SPOT-7 satellites into orbit in September 2012 and the end of 2013, respectively, guaranteeing smooth transition for the SPOT family.

Jean Dauphin, Astrium’s Head of Earth Observation & Science, France, applauds SPOT’s success: “The first SPOT satellite was a true pioneer in making space-based imagery of our globe available on a commercial basis. The SPOT series has gone from strength to strength and is recognition of both the engineering savoir-faire of Astrium Satellites and the marketing expertise of Spot Image – now part of the Astrium Services fold. With Astrium Satellites already well advanced on the design and build of the next-generation SPOT-6 and SPOT-7 – an ambitious program with challenging technological objectives, offering a more efficient and competitive solution as part of a wholly EADS-funded approach – we are looking forward to continuing this hugely successful partnership.”

Gérard Brachet, Spot Image’s CEO from 1982 to 1994, is also full of praise for the ground-breaking SPOT adventure: “Created in 1982 and fully up and running with the launch of the first SPOT satellite exactly 25 years ago, Spot Image was the first commercial company in the world to operate Earth observation satellites. It was down to its extensive global network and the quality and enthusiasm of its personnel in Toulouse, Washington, Sydney, Singapore and Beijing that it well and truly cracked this new market. The excellent performance of the five successive SPOT satellites, all of which were primed by Matra Marconi Space – later to become Astrium – played a major role in this success.”

Patrick Le Roch, head of Astrium Services GEO Division, concludes “As a newcomer to Astrium, I am very impressed by the SPOT legacy and could not be happier to have taken over the reigns of such a successful business. We have an exciting future ahead of us as we enter a new era with SPOT-6 and SPOT-7 operational just a few years from now.”

Further information can be found at CNES

(Source Astrium Services)_

The Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (IEEE J-STARS) is looking for papers for a special issue on “Interoperability architectures and arrangements for multi-disciplinary Earth Observation systems and applications”.

The deadline for submission is 1 June 2011.

Among other areas, papers are solicited in comprehensive and inclusive solutions for multi-disciplinary Earth Observation capabilities addressing national and international spatial data infrastructure initiatives such as INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community) or GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security).

Further details are available INSPIRE

(Source GMES.INFO)

Significant social and economic changes take place nowadays in the modern society. Those changes are first of all connected to rampant development of knowledge-intensive production. The key success factor for establishment of “new economy” is proactive adoption of new ideas, systems and technologies, readiness to promptly realize scientific developments into production. This provides for necessity of constant personnel reeducation and sets out new requirements to levels of specialist training. New requirements arise with regard to the processes of integrating science, education and business.

The center for this integration shall be constituted by Universities. Presently, universities provide grounds for interactive structures (technoparks, business incubators, scientific test sites, consulting organizations), that demonstrate prospects of the trilateral interaction.

In developed countries universities are legally competent subjects of national and regional development per many indices along with government authorities and economic structures.

In Russia, the processes of integrating science, education and business are not developing as rapidly as they are in the west.

This is due to the fact that partners have difficulties in casting away historical stereotypes being a disincentive to innovative activities.

In addition, in recent years the segment of “Innovative” universities has already taken shape, where quite a few technologies and corresponding products were developed utilizing results of scientific research and experimental design works, which can be commercialized even today.

Since the first day of its functioning (1989) the ScanEx Research and Development Center has come to understanding of the need to interact with educational institutions and scientific organizations.

Taking into account that current rampant development and introduction of space-based Earth observation facilities and GIS-technologies requires training of highly professional contemporary specialists, in the past few years ScanEx RDC have supplied UniScan ground stations to over 20 high educational institutions in Russia, Kazakhstan and Spain. Those stations served as basis for creating scientific and educational centers for space monitoring, which now provide training and refresher training of specialists with modern knowledge in Earth remote sensing and geoinformation systems, as well as training on real-time satellite imagery-based technologies supporting decision-making process.

Another activity exercised on the basis of space monitoring centers is implementation of fundamental and applied research on scientific research specializations. In addition a center of this kind ensures maximum efficiency in regular monitoring of local and neighboring regions in near real-time mode and display information received by the station on the geoportal for further analysis and decision-making by economic entities in the area of nature management, agriculture, land-property relations, town-planning practice, road construction, infrastructure building, etc.

Nonetheless, centers of space monitoring already established throughout universities are currently functioning as stand-alone entities, without cooperation with each other. Lack of interaction and exchange of experience between space monitoring centers of the universities discourage their intensive development. In late 2010 ScanEx RDC put forward the idea of creating the university-based network of space monitoring centers. The idea was supported by many higher education institutions, where such space monitoring centered have already been installed (fig. 1): Belgorod State University, Northern Arctic Federal University, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Urals Federal University (fig. 2), Samara State Aerospace University, Siberian Federal University, Kazakh-British Technical University, University of Valencia (Spain), University of Valladolid (Spain), etc.

A seminar “From RS Ground Station to Integration and Network Solution” took place on February 4-11, 2011, participated by representatives from leading Russian universities, federal and regional governmental authorities, business communities and foreign partners from Turkey and France.

The seminar participants noted with satisfaction the increasing role of leading Russian universities in preparations of highly-qualified specialists, in better refresher training of personnel for different economic industries, in development and introduction of domestic technologies and software applications, in creation of geoportal services for conservation of nature, research and monitoring of the environment and industrial processes, commercialization of intellectual activities’ results, etc.

Technology of direct reception of data from Earth observation satellites has been currently used in this way or another in all Federal Districts of the Russian Federation. However, further efficient development of existing university-based network of space monitoring centers requires coordination of their activities in order to resolve current tasks. First of all, those are the issues of working out a joint strategy of development and introduction of technology innovations and methods of Earth remote sensing from space, solution of international legal issues related to remote sensing, optimization of expenses and license costs, entitling reception of data and upgrading of receiving channels, joint participation in international projects and programs, commercialization of remote sensing results.

Operating as stand-alone entities these centers face the need to tackle similar problems. In particular, in Russia the universities have to address to the Russian Federal Space Agency to get licenses for data reception and processing.

The Russian Law on “Space Activities” integrates the data reception and processing. Does the data processing actually have something to do with space activity? Nowadays, organizations, having the technology of data reception from RS satellites, including universities, have to obtain respective licenses. In European countries the legislation in sphere of space activities and operations with remote sensing data is more clear and transparent. However, both Russian and foreign universities have to share experience with each other in remote sensing. This will allow avoiding duplication of work and increasing the efficiency of introducing space technology into scientific and educational process.

Integration of university-based centers of space monitoring will enable to resolve the most important task of access to information resources. In particular, financial expenses of each university can be essentially reduced when acquiring space images. Specialists will then be able to contribute their intellect and energy in scientific, educational and economic solutions based on space images.

The activities to create the university-based network of space monitoring centers are ongoing. Universities from different countries, interested in integration in sphere of space technology, may become a part of it.

More information about the university-based centers of space monitoring, as well as about the practical implementation into scientific and educational process of satellite imagery data can be learnt at the 5th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions”, which is to take place in Moscow, Russia from November 28 to December 1, 2011. More details about this coming event are available at the conference website: http://www.conference.scanex.ru/index.php/en.html.

Figures
Fig. 1. Space monitoring centers installed in Universities
Fig. 2. UniScan antenna system on roof of a building at the Urals Federal University (Yekaterinburg, Russia)

by Marina Sergeeva, ScanEx RDC, www.scanex.ru

TOWARD A EUROPEAN SPACE-SPECIFIC INDUSTRIAL POLICY food for thought paper from the European space industry

SPACE MARKETS

Unlike its international competitors, European Space industry heavily relies on the commercial business – mainly civil communications but also services and remote sensing applications – where it makes a significant, although highly variable, share of its turnover. Actually, the European Space industry demonstrates its competitiveness by getting almost half of the global open market, having in mind that the latter represents just a fraction of the overall global market, be it in the field of satellites or launch services.

Actually, commercial markets help industry keeping the critical mass of activity to safeguard some critical competencies. It thus contributes to the availability of the required technologies and skills at affordable conditions to meet the requirements of future European public Space systems and services.

Member states and European institutions are generally aware that, however satisfying, this situation remains tense with the on-going aggressive return of the US industry in this area when US public funds for military programmes are getting scarce, or with the future emergence of newcomers like India or China which might become fierce competitors once major national objectives assigned to their Space industries have been fulfilled.

In this respect, public support must continue to accompany the evolution of the sector and maintain its competitiveness.

Institutional programmes are key drivers for the development of new technologies, would it be in the field of Earth sciences, astronomy, Space exploration or Security and Defence. No commercial market can sustain the level of investment required to keep up with the evolution of technical requirements in these areas, and only institutional programmes can bear the level of risk associated to the in-orbit qualification of the new technologies at stake.

The fact that industry needs a sustained institutional market is indisputable. The corollary is that institutions must assume the major role they play in the structuring of Space industry through adequate industrial policies.

As long as the market cannot offer a stable framework to industry, the implementation of Article 189 of the Lisbon Treaty comes along with the setting up of an adequate Space specific industrial policy to safeguard the security of supply that European public sector needs for the implementation of its policies in an efficient and cost-effective way.

It all starts with R&D which is publicly funded everywhere in the world.

FROM INDUSTRIAL POLICY TO PROCUREMENT POLICY

After an initial phase when Space activities were fully endorsed by public bodies, the European Space industrial sector was deemed mature enough to allow for lesser involvement of governments, and there was a broad shift toward privatisation of the quasi totality of European Space industry.

Once governments deprived for their full control over industry, “industrial” policy quickly turned into “procurement” policy. In this new paradigm, the overarching rule has been to formalise a clear customer/provider relationship between public bodies and industry and to rely to the largest extent on open and transparent competition processes – within the limits of the Geographical Return obligations as far as ESA is concerned. In this new context, R&D policy is increasingly a tool to ensure the competitiveness of the European industrial base.

A LIMITED EUROPEAN DOMESTIC MARKET

As compared with the situation of other space faring nations, the European institutional market alone is insufficient to sustain a self reliant industrial capacity. As a matter of fact, overall European institutional Space budgets have been at best stagnating over the last decade. Europe in Space is currently losing ground to most, if not all other Space faring nations.

In this respect, the Space competence of the Union and the budgets it will hopefully devote to the concrete implementation of the European Space Policy are opportunities to enlarge the European domestic market and reduce the drawback European Space industry suffers on the global market.

The European Commission has made a remarkable job in identifying where space resources will contribute to many of EU public policies in areas as varied as maritime security, border surveillance, environment monitoring and climate change, resources management, etc…

Beyond the deployment of Space infrastructures, which is a necessary and preliminary condition, a mechanism must be defined so that concrete data and services are actually procured to serve these objectives.

In this respect, the recent multi-billion-dollar contract committed by the US government for their(its) future needs in Space imagery represents a major competitive advantage to the US providers in this domain. This shows the limits of a purely market driven policy.

Ultimately, a European Space industrial policy shall encompass the downstream sector to ensure the future development of a robust domestic market in the field of Space-based services.

SUPPORT TO COMPETITIVENESS

European space industry, despite to the shrinking R&D support from member States and ESA, maintains a world-class technological level. These capabilities position Europe at the forefront of Space and Earth sciences and empower the European industry on the commercial markets.

In this context, support to the competitiveness of the whole supply chain of the European Space industry is the major challenge to be taken up in terms of industrial policy. Such support shall not take the form of subsidies, but must be addressed through an adequate R&D policy and must be organised Europe-wide to ensure that European industry will continue to keep up with its international rivals, strongly backed by massive domestic markets.

The objective is to guarantee that the European Space industry will have access at reasonable and risk mitigated conditions to the top level technologies it needs. From this perspective, it is complementary to the general Research and Innovation orientation of most of the public Space R&T programmes.

As a matter of fact, with the noticeable exception of the ESA GSTP and ARTES programmes, public R&T support mostly addresses advanced technologies in their early phases while support to competitiveness should also address, in a coordinated EU approach, the following steps of developments where technologies are matured and fully qualified in products readily available to industry and programmes.

From this stand point a European initiative to provide a framework for the maturation of Space technologies, and ultimately to their full qualification in orbit would foster the current European Space R&D policies.

TECHNOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE

In many respects, supporting European Space industry competitiveness and addressing the issue of technological dependence of Europe converge on common objectives as both issues deal with access to leading edge technologies which condition the ability of European industry to be present on all potentially accessible markets.

From a historical perspective, it is interesting to note that unlike all other space faring nations, Europe didn’t put much emphasis on non-dependence. As a matter of fact, United States, Russia, China, India, or Japan have all clearly set the objective of full independence in Space as a high level priority. In this respect, the work of the Joint EC/ESA/EDA Task Force needs to be continued and its recommendations must be implemented.

Eventually, as long as other space powers do not object, it is obvious that the global market can provide for most of the technologies needed. This is in particular the case as far as Space science and open commercial business are concerned.

Actually, technological dependence does not only hamper industry competitiveness. In a tougher competitive international framework, it might also question the capacity of Europe to get access to the top performance systems and services it deserves for the implementation of its domestic policies, would it be in the field of knowledge society, resources management or security in Space and on Earth.

Ultimately, non-dependence is a matter of sovereignty. It raises the issue of the role that Europe intends to play on the international scene. As a matter of fact, it conditions its capability to undertake autonomous activities or collaborations with other space faring nations in Space without beforehand submitting requests for utilization of technologies to non-European suppliers.

A reflection should also be initiated to define the criteria which qualify a product as being “European”.

From this standpoint, it must be stressed that the rule of co-funding is generally not adapted to addressing sovereignty issues as such technologies do not most often offer a sufficient level of recurring applications for industry to justify the investment.

WORK WITH THE ACTUAL INDUSTRIAL PATTERN

Basically, in a context of absence of growth, the development of the European space industry fuelled by the continued R&T support of member States leads in several areas to a situation of structural overcapacity.

Antagonist forces are then at work:

  • On one hand, institutions seek multiple potential sources to stimulate competition for the benefit of their future procurements,
  • On the other hand, in a limited and flat – if not depleting – market, where major long-term procurements are scarce, industry, in an attempt to keep the critical mass and ensure the continuity of the workload in its critical skills, tends to concentrate.

A Europe-wide Space specific industrial policy shall thus account for the limited and not expanding size of the market to organise competition wherever and whenever possible between European players, and encourage new entrants only when they come up with innovative solutions and technologies, and in a seamless manner for on-going activities.

ESA AND UNION: TWO DIFFERENT PROCUREMENT APPROACHES

ESA procurement policy takes into account the origin of the funds in the awarding of contracts through the Geo Return rules.

It also integrates key objectives of industrial policy such as preserving the industrial base or targeting R&T developments in the perspective of potential needs of its future programmes.

On EU side, the general rule is to fully open competition for its procurements. This principle needs to be adapted to the Space specific context as it was done for Galileo.

It presupposes the existence of multiple potential providers to actually enable open competition and ignores formal Geographical Return rules or industrial policy objectives.

ESA procurement policy has proven to be successful in many respects and is not challenged for scientific and technological optional programmes based on the willingness of member States to join resources to achieve ambitious objectives. It shows its limits when it comes to the deployment of operational infrastructures- like Galileo and GMES – raising commercial, industrial, political and/or strategic stakes.

Regarding these future operational European Space infrastructures for instance, it is vital to set up with no delay clearly identified operators which are indispensable to:

  • Ensure the proper interface between the Space agencies, service providers and end-users,
  • Take up the responsibility for long-term operations and adaptation of the infrastructure,
  • Ensure the delivery of continuous data to service users,
  • Maximise opportunities for the development of commercial services.

This is where EU timely and opportunely steps in to provide a sustainable framework through adequate regulations and budgets.

Europe will most likely live with the coexistence of EU and ESA in space. Therefore, their respective roles need to be clarified through clear regulations.

In this respect, it is particularly important to industry to have a consistent and adapted industrial policy and transparent and stable procurement regulations.

Moreover, the intergovernmental structure of ESA, together with the capacity of member States to invest in Space should be preserved in the governance model to be developed to ensure additionality with the budgets which Union will devote to Space applications and research.

NEED FOR A SPACE SPECIFIC PROCUREMENT APPROACH

The procurement approaches implemented by ESA and EU should be consistent and cope with the specificities of the space sector.

Furthermore, independence of Europe in Space relies on the availability of a sustained supply chain. Security of supply should thus be a major concern in the future European Space policy regarding critical technologies.

Therefore, EU procurement process should be based on a dedicated European industrial policy aiming at:

  • Safeguarding the European capability to conceive, develop, launch, operate and exploit Space systems,
  • Strengthening the competitiveness, efficiency, reliability of the European Space industry,
  • Enhancing the European technological non-dependence in the Space sector,
  • Ensuring the sustainability of the sector through long term commitments and stability and predictability of rules and budgets, including the preference to use European means and assets,
  • Contributing to a balanced industrial development across Europe.

Such industrial policy must of course build on existing European leading edge industrial and technological capabilities.

It should also account for the practises of all other space faring nations which actually rely to the largest extent on their sole domestic industrial capabilities to fulfil the needs of their national civil and defence Space programmes. Worldwide, the Space market cannot be considered as an open business, and the commercial market, where European industry has been very successful so far, represents just a fraction of the total.

Therefore, all efforts shall be made to level the playing field with worldwide competitors. In this respect, opening the European market shall be conditioned to reciprocity measures to ensure an open and fair access of the European industry to non-European institutional markets. This should include the preferred use of existing and future European Space assets such as launch services, Space constellations, etc…

Moreover, such procurement policies should build on the outcome of the ongoing R&T harmonisation process undertaken by ESA and member States and integrate measures in favour of a greater involvement of SMEs in the development of services, accounting for the additional difficulty for small companies to overcome the technological barrier in Space hardware development and qualification. However, such measures should not be limited to encouraging newcomers, which in some areas just leads to overcapacity.

The European Space Industry definitely supports European-wide open and fair competition for the awarding of public contracts, whenever it is feasible and can be based on sound industrial capabilities. The European Space programmes should meet Union’s expectations and Policies objectives while enhancing European industry international competitiveness, growth and sustainability (according to Europe2020 objectives).

Based on such principles, ESA and Union procurement policies, although different by nature, should at least be compatible and serve common purposes.

In the name of the European Space industry community, Eurospace is looking forward to being involved and contributing to the upcoming reflections in these matters.

EUROSPACE PP INDUSTRIAL POLICY 2011.pdf

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