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UNOOSA/UN-SPIDER Senior Expert Jörg Szarzynski participated in the High Level Conference “Space for the African Citizen” in Brussels.

Organized by the Belgian High Representation for Space Policy under the auspices of the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the main goal of the Conference was to demonstrate the relevance of space technologies as a transversal tool to favor development and growth, to facilitate good resource management, and to contribute to the preparation and the implementation of the policies in various fields, such as health, education, agriculture, and transport. Major discussion points during this meeting were 1.) the concept and establishment of an African Space Agency, 2.) a Pan-African University Institute on Space Science, and 3.) current and future projects in Africa such as AMESD, TIGER and especially GMES for Africa.

Mr. Szarzynski was also invited to participate in the preceeding High Level Policy Meeting on Space to present a statement on behalf of UNOOSA. This meeting was specifically intended as a discussion forum between high-level representatives from Europe and from Africa. During this meeting Report No. 26 of the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), called: “European-African Partnership in Satellite Applications for Sustainable Development – A Comprehensive Mapping of European-African Actors and Activities”, was distributed to the participants. Within this report UNOOSA/UN-SPIDER is mentioned on pp. 56 – 58. The report is available on the ESPI website

Report

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Addis Ababa — The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) have agreed to promote the use of scientific information obtained from space-based facilities to better manage disasters in Africa, during a three-day meeting in Addis Ababa last summer

The plan to reach out to policymakers and popularise the use of space technologies for disaster management in Africa could help curb disasters such as pest outbreaks and floods.

According to Makena Faye, the UN Officer in charge of e-Applications at UNECA, policymakers need to be made aware of the potential of space technologies to improve people’s daily lives.

“Despite the importance of space science and technology in generating and applying knowledge, they have still not aroused political interest, and many African policymakers do not see this area in a long-term perspective required to enable investment in the needed infrastructure,” Aida Opoku-Mensah, director of UNECA’s ICT, Science and Technology Division told SciDev.Net.

“Some countries in Africa have already embarked on developing operational national space programmes,” said Opoku-Mensah. “Among them are Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa.”

“These countries have launched at least one earth observation satellite. Nigeria, for example, established the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) in 1998 and developed a 25-year roadmap for the Nigeria space programme,” she said.

South Africa is developing its astronomy and space sector, and has established the South African Space Agency to co-ordinate its efforts in space science and technology. Others countries, like Morocco, are also developing a policy to launch a space programme.

But Opoku-Mensah said space technology was still not considered important among policymakers in many other parts of Africa.

The need for better coordination between the space science and disaster management communities in Africa was also highlighted in the meeting.

Juan Carlos Villagrán de León, programme officer at the UN Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response, said space-based informationcan play a role in emergency response in Africa, as it has done in many other countries in cases of floods, locust swarms, and drought.

“At present, countries like, Namibia, Burkina Faso, Togo, Mozambique and Kenya are making progress in the use of space technologies,” he said.

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The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) and the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance the development and use of geospatial standards.

(August 2010). Under the agreement the two organizations will work cooperatively to raise the awareness, acceptance, and implementation of open standards and to promote educational programs and best practices that benefit the memberships of ISPRS and OGC and practitioners worldwide. This will involve Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) demonstrations and workshops, sensor network standardization events, and events on topics such as multi-source data fusion and multi-spectral image processing. They will seek resources and partnerships to advance joint OGC testbeds, pilot projects, and experiments that address such topics, and they will encourage cooperation between the members of the OGC Working Groups and ISPRS Commissions.

“This is an important step forward for the global remote sensing community,” explained Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the OGC. “OGC benefits from the ISPRS’s century of industry stewardship and experience. Members and stakeholders of the ISPRS will benefit from closer ties with those who are developing open standards that improve application of diverse technologies for observing and measuring Earth features and phenomena.”

According to Orhan Altan, president of ISPRS, “The joint activities of OGC and ISPRS will strengthen the ISPRS involvement in standards and interoperability and will allow the ISPRS Working Groups to have input into OGC projects.”

About the ISPRS

The ISPRS is a non-governmental organization devoted to the development of international cooperation for the advancement of knowledge, research, development education and training in photogrammetry, remote sensing and their applications, and to contribute to the well-being of humanity and the sustainability of the environment.

About the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®)

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 395 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.

Visit the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org/contact

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Euromap GmbH, the exclusive supplier of Indian Remote Sensing data in Europe, has become the first GMES Contributing Mission Entity to provide data from optical missions to ESRIN through dedicated operational interfaces.

Neustrelitz, Germany, October 05, 2010: Euromap GmbH, the exclusive supplier of Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) data in Europe, and the European Space Agency (ESA), which manages earth observation data access for GMES service projects in its role as the coordinator of the GMES Space Component, being part of the GMES programme as managed by the European Commission, today announced that they have commenced operations with the interfaces between Euromap and ESA‟s Coordinated Data Access System (CDS) infrastructure.

Having passed the Operations Readiness Review milestone on June 25, 2010, Euromap has now become the first GMES Contributing Mission Entity (GCM) of an optical mission to operationally provide data and services through the version 1 interfaces developed as part of the GMES Space Component Data Access (GSC-DA) project.

A corresponding GSC-DA contract, covering the development of interfaces and the supply of data from the IRS-P6 Resourcesat-1, IRS-P5 Cartosat-1, IRS-1C and IRS-1D missions, was signed in May 2009 between ESA and a Euromap-led consortium, with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) working as a sub-contractor.

The interface development was supported by the departments National Ground Segment and Information Technology of the DLR institute German Remote Sensing Data Centre (DFD). The DFD also operates the catalogue system providing access to quick looks and metadata relating to the IRS data received by Euromap in cooperation with the DFD at the ground station in Neustrelitz, Germany.

Frithjof Barner, Technical Director of Euromap, commented: “The software and interface development was a challenge for us as a small company, but by December 2009 we had managed to start making deliveries through the respective interfaces of about 4000 ortho products from the Resourcesat-1 LISS-III sensor as a contribution to the European wall-to-wall coverage Image2009. Having mastered this we feel well prepared for the operational phase and are looking forward to further cooperation with ESA.”

ESA’s responsible for the GSCDA system development, Dr. Alessandra Tassa, said: “The development of interfaces is an achievement in the GSCDA project, since it allows reducing effort from operators and improves the quality of the provided services. Thanks to the developed interfaces, Euromap data products will be automatically circulated to ESA coordinating infrastructure, archived, catalogued and made available on-line to GMES users without operators‟ intervention. In addition, semi-automated reporting will result in an improved monitoring of the provided services.“

About Euromap: www.euromap.de

Euromap Satellitendaten-Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH was founded in 1996 as a 100% owned subsidiary of GAF AG in order to create an efficient commercial structure to receive, archive and market Earth observation satellite data in Germany. Experience and expertise in data reception and processing is optimally combined in the company with marketing and distribution activities – thus providing the essential conditions for supporting a growing user-market for remote sensing data. Euromap GmbH is located in Neustrelitz, Germany.

About ESA / ESRIN: http://www.esa.int/esaMI/ESRIN_SITE/index.html

ESRIN, the ESA Centre for Earth Observation, is one of the five ESA specialised centres situated in Europe. Located in Frascati, a small town 20 km south of Rome in Italy, ESRIN was established in 1966 and first began acquiring data from environmental satellites in the 1970s. Since 2004, ESRIN has been the headquarters for ESA’s Earth Observation activities.

ESA is developing and managing the Space Component for the GMES initiative. The Space Component includes a series of five space missions called „Sentinels‟, which are being developed by ESA specifically for GMES. Besides specifically developed Sentinel satellites, ESA manages access to other GMES Contributing Missions. These Contributing Missions include both existing and new satellites, whether owned and operated at European level by either EUMETSAT, privately or publicly in ESA Member States. They also include data acquired from non-European partners. The Space Component forms the European contribution to the worldwide Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

About DFD: http://www.caf.dlr.de/caf/institut/dfd/

The German Remote Sensing Data Centre (DFD) is an institute of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). Together with the centre‟s Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF), it comprises DLR‟s Applied Remote Sensing Cluster, which coordinates DLR‟s activities relating to Earth observation data from satellites and aircraft. DFD focuses on the reception, archiving, distribution and utilisation of data. In addition to applied research, DFD has expertise in the development and operational performance of IT systems.

For more information, please contact:

Euromap GmbH
Phone +49 3981 4883 0
info@euromap.de

European Space Agency
Phone +39 06 94180673
Alessandra.Tassa@esa.int

Euromap GmbH
Kalkhorstweg 53, D-17235 Neustrelitz, Germany,
Tel.: +49 (0)3981 4883-0, Fax: +49 (0)3981 4883-20,
E—mail: info@euromap.de, www.euromap.de

The results from ESA’s SMOS satellite have been impressive, but the mission has been bugged by patches of interference from radar, TV and radio transmissions in what should be a protected band.

Painstaking efforts to reduce these unwanted signals are now paying off.

Soon after the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission was launched, it was realised that, in some places, the data were being badly contaminated by radio-frequency interference – or RFI for short.

At times, this interference was effectively blinding the instrument, rendering the data over certain areas unusable. Nevertheless, SMOS was still clearly meeting its scientific requirements in areas free of RFI. However, to maximise the benefits of the mission the RFI issue needed to be addressed, which could only come about through international collaboration.

SMOS, also known as ESA’s water mission, carries a passive radiometer that operates at 1400–1427 MHz in the L-band of the electromagnetic spectrum to capture snapshots of ‘brightness temperature’. These snapshots correspond to microwave radiation being emitted from Earth’s surface and relate to the amount of moisture in soil and salinity in the ocean. This information is needed to improve our understanding of Earth’s water cycle.

According to radio regulations set by the International Telecommunications Union, this frequency band is reserved for the Earth Exploration Satellite Service, space research and radio astronomy. However, SMOS data revealed that there were many incidences of signals within this protected band, particularly in southern Europe, Asia, the Middle East and some coastal zones.

The transmissions contaminating the data were due to two main reasons: either emissions in adjacent bands that were leaking into the protected region owing to excessive power levels, or illegal transmissions within 1400–1427 MHz.

So far, the main culprits appear to be TV transmitters, radio links and networks such as security systems. Also terrestrial radars appear to cause interference.

To ensure that the excellence of the mission would not be compromised, ESA embarked upon the tricky and lengthy process of having the illegal transmissions shut down and the excessive out-of-band emissions reduced.

Tackling Europe first, this is being done case by case through co-operation with governments – and a significant number of sources of interference have already been eliminated.

The SMOS data are able to show, within a few kilometres, where the interference comes from. Knowing the rough locations, ESA has been contacting National Spectrum Management Authorities to request that they take steps to resolve the issue.

Mostly, the next stage involves the various authorities sending personnel into the field with sensors to identify the precise source of the signals.

In some cases, it’s simply a matter of retuning the device to prevent the signal from leaking into the protected band or, more seriously, if the device is operating illegally the authorities have been shutting them down.

Over the last few months, ESA has been in touch with most European governments. Although it might seem a laborious process, co-operation between ESA and the National Spectrum Management Authorities has already led to a significant improvement so that RFI in the SMOS data is on the wane.

Spain is a particularly good example of this – the data are now much-improved with respect to RFI.

While the co-operation between ESA and governmental authorities continues to be fruitful, the hope is that these cases will lead to tighter regulation enforcement.

(source: ESA)

We’ve heard recently of the use of satellite imagery in petroleum exploration work in Belize. Local and global observation systems are now being advanced that would allow people around the globe to collect and share data, as easily as one browses the Internet.

According to GEO – Group on Earth Observations, a system dubbedGlobal Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) will, just as with the Internet, “…be a global and flexible network of content providers allowing decision makers to access an extraordinary range of information at their desk.

“This ‘system of systems’ will proactively link together existing and planned observing systems around the world and support the development of new systems where gaps currently exist.”

GEO claims that the systems have many useful applications such as forecasting meningitis outbreaks, supporting disaster management in Central and South America, improving agriculture and fisheries management, and mapping and classifying ecosystems.

As a part of this global scheme, and in the context of SERVIR (Sistema Regional de Visualización y Monitoreo or the Regional System of Visualization and Monitoring), a 30-year study was just released for Belize, which is a GEO member.

A September 2010 report, Forest Cover and Deforestation in Belize: 1980-2010, was produced by a team of scientists led by Emil A. Cherrington, Senior Scientist, Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America & the Caribbean (CATHALAC — Centro del Agua del Trópico Húmedo para América Latina y El Caribe); along with Dan Irwin of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the US); Edgar Ek; Percival Cho and others.

They say that Belize has the highest relative forest cover in the region. While Belize comprises 5% of Central America’s land mass, it accounts for 10% of the region’s forest carbon stock.

Cherrington, who also coauthored the article “SERVIR supports forest management in Belize” with Irwin, says that, “Belize’s forest cover has declined from 75.9% in 1980 to 62.7% as of late February 2010.”

This finding, he notes, is based on imagery analysis for 1980, 1989, 1994, 2000, 2004, and 2010. They used satellite technology from the Landsat series, a system managed by NASA and the US Geological Survey.

The document notes that Belize’s annual deforestation was estimated at 0.6% or about 10,000 hectares of forest per year.

While the report commends the forest conservation afforded by putting a large percentage of Belize’s land mass under protected status, we note that the images confirm clearings that authorities say have been happening illegally due to cross-border incursions inside the Chiquibul Forest Reserve and other parts of Cayo. This largely deforested area, clearly visible on the 2010 map, was densely forested before Independence in 1980.

While Orange Walk, for example, appears largely unchanged, Toledo shows a stark contrast. Only a sliver of land in the central part of the district and an area in the north east seemed properly cleared in 1980, but a sizeable span of the district has now been cleared, as the district is now home to more than 30 Maya villages and other settlements—many of them founded between the time span of the two satellite surveys—as well as tourism and agricultural investments.

“Of particular significance is the study’s illustrating that protected areas have been extremely effective in conserving forests, with only a small percent of forests within protected areas being detected as cleared within the past 30 years, compared to a quarter of forests outside of protected areas being cleared in that period,” note Cherrington and Irwin.

As Amandala has previously reported, it is estimated that 36% of Belize’s land mass is under protected status.

“While this assessment utilized an exhaustive 27 gigabytes of imagery and intermediate outputs which required significant computational resources, the entire study was completed in just four months, including the analysis of pre-collected field data to ‘ground truth’ the outputs,” the authors say, adding that the study was completed in August.

Cherrington and Irwin comment, “This work complements a European Commission-funded study, by CATHALAC, of land cover change across all of Central America. Representatives of the Government of Belize have expressed interest in using this study as an input to international reporting for a range of commitments ranging from the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to the emerging Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative.

“Making use of the TROPICARMS 2.0 system implemented by CATHALAC, the report also estimates Belize’s current stock of forest carbon – an important requirement of REDD+.”

The study notes that Belize’s forest carbon stock is over 300 million tons of carbon, which means it has potential for being accepted under the REDD+.

Belize has expressed interest in using this sort of data on forest cover to earn credits and funds through the UN REDD+ project.

Ambassador David Gibson, foreign affairs consultant for Belize, told Amandala earlier this year, in discussing the issue of continued deforestation in Belize by Guatemalans, that Belize wants to use “science diplomacy” to help dissuade this type of illegal activity.

“What we have done under the heading of science diplomacy, is to harness science and technology to deal with this problem under the heading of the Copenhagen UN REDD Plus … to which all countries subscribe, including Guatemala.”

He had noted that Guyana was able to access millions because of its large forest cover.

(Author’s Note: In 1954, Belize’s population was under 80,000. Today approaching 4 times that.)

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The commercial remote-sensing business is still on a rapid growth trajectory, but weaning the sector from military and government sales will be difficult, as German startup Rapid Eye has discovered.

Last month, RapidEye announced a search for a new investor to help sustain it until the business model for its system, mainly funded by the private sector (with no government pre-sales commitments), can be shown to be viable. Brandenburg an der Havel-based RapidEye was founded in 1998 to provide geo-information services and products directly to agriculture, forestry, energy, mapping, environmental and emergency users. Its five-satellite fleet, launched in August 2008, offers imagery in five spectral bands, with a five-meter-pixel size, and can revisit any point on Earth on a daily basis. It can map 4 million sq. km. (1,544,000 sq. mi.) a day (AW&ST Sept. 8, 2008, p. 40).

“We’re still convinced our business case is correct,” CEO Wolfgang Biedermann told the Euroconsult-organized Symposium on Earth Observation Business, in Paris last month. “But customers are proving very cautious in making long-term commitments [so] turning the industry into one not dependent on government and big business is going to take a bit longer than we thought.”

Biedermann says the quasi-privately held company is seeking $200 million in equity, either from a financial or strategic investor, mostly to fund new products and applications but also to begin designing a follow-on constellation that will have to be in place by 2014-15. “We need another two years of learning,” he says.

Despite RapidEye’s difficulties, the outlook for commercial remote sensing is bright. Euroconsult estimates that sales of commercial data have grown 27% per annum since 2007, reaching $1.1 billion last year, and could quadruple over the next decade. However, the industry remains highly dependent on government and defense use (see chart, p. 53). A number of issues will have to be resolved to curb this dependency, industry executives noted, including low pricing for value-added services, fragmentation of the service industry and assuaging doubts as to the future availability of Earth-observation satellite sources.

But the primary weakness the sector faces, according to many participants, is that it requires useful products to make remote sensing an invisible but essential link for users outside the space community, such as telecommunications. “Finding success in the industry will mean reaching customers who are not remote-sensing knowledgeable,” says John Hornsby, president of MDA Geospatial Services.

Some think the key will be in convincing such big commercial users as energy companies or geo-portal providers to become more involved. Russian gas giant Gazprom is reviewing bids for a satellite constellation—that could be in orbit by 2015—to monitor its vast pipeline network. French oil titan Total’s position is that the energy industry might be interested in investing in promising new remote-sensing capabilities such as hyperspectral sensors. But perhaps the biggest targets are Google and its large U.S. rival, Microsoft Virtual Globe.

Surrey Satellite Technology and Blue Planet, a startup spun off a year ago by French space agency CNES, are targeting Google and Microsoft as potential investors or anchor tenants for proposed high-accuracy microsatellite constellations that they think could drive down the cost of imagery by a factor of 10 or more (AW&ST Jan. 19, 2009, p. 31; Oct. 20, 2008, p. 36). SSTL says a single satellite in its system, dubbed ART, could map the entire Earth within three months at a color resolution of 0.6 meters for under $50 million.

Blue Planet’s concept, known as e-Corce, would use a powerful network of ground receiving and data processing stations meshed with a fleet of inexpensive microsats to provide weekly or daily updates of every corner of the planet in 1-meter (3.2-ft.) color resolution. The company is seeking €400 million ($538.5 million) to develop the ground segment, where the system’s intelligence will be concentrated, and to orbit an initial 13-spacecraft fleet. “If we can cut the cost per pixel by three or so, Earth observation has the potential to become one of the biggest space businesses,” says Jean-Jacques Favier, company president.

SSTL announced at the symposium that it will consider building a 1-meter-resolution third-generation Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) that would offer commercial imagery capacity on a lease basis, the way telecom satellite operators do.

In the meantime, says Astrium Services CEO Eric Beranger, the industry is in transition. Astrium is funding two new Spot spacecraft out of its own pocket—the first time this has been done for a major remote-sensing project. But closing the business case without pre-sales commitments is likely to be difficult. “Commercial business is growing faster than government activity,” Beranger says, “but for infrastructure development we still need the government to prime the pump.”

Astrium’s vice president of institutional affairs, Gilles Maquet, told an industry gathering in Prague last week that the Obama administration’s decision to greatly increase government reliance on commercial imagery would serve as a good template for helping ride the shift to commercial from government leadership. The U.S. policy has led to a seven-fold increase in the amount of imagery available to the government and a 20-fold decrease in prices,” Maquet noted. “We need this kind of long-term support from European governments.”

On Aug. 6, the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) awarded GeoEye $3.8 billion for the new Enhanced View program, which is expected to double the amount of commercial imagery available to the government. A $3.5-billion award went to Digital Globe.

Although some of the money will go toward new capacity—GeoEye says the government will contribute $337 million to help defray the cost, estimated by some to be up to $800 million, of building and launching GeoEye-2—most of that for buying imagery and developing new products and services.

NGA’s director of commercial imagery, Karyn Hayes-Ryan, says a key aspect of Enhanced View will be a project known as RDOC to format products and services so they can be quickly available to all users, including operators and warfighters in the field, with full interoperability and around-the-clock updates, in a form they can readily use, which mirrors the commercial operators’ goal. Fully $700 million of the GeoEye award, and $750 million of the Digital Globe contract, will be dedicated to development of value-added products and services.

In addition to government support, imagery providers worry that data policies being adopted by various governments, particularly the European Union, could undercut the commercial business case. “Any policy that improves the availability of archived data will stimulate the market, says SSTL Chairman Martin Sweeting. “But I am concerned they might use government funding to make near real-time data available at no cost.

By Michael A. Taverna
Source AviationWeek

South African researchers are benefitting from a unique partnership between NASA and agencies in Africa and Europe that is sending more than 30 terabytes of satellite data to support sustainable development and environmental applications in Africa, the U.S. space agency announced October 6.

One of the instruments on board NASA’s Terra satellite provides observations of Africa’s surface and atmosphere, including vegetation structure, airborne pollution particles, cloud heights and winds. This data will be accessible through a distribution center in Africa to users who cannot remotely download the large data files because of limitations in the continent’s Internet infrastructure.

Terra’s multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer (MISR), which provides the data, was built and is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, processes and distributes the data.

The MISR has measured the Earth’s surface and atmosphere continuously for more than a decade, observing the sunlit portion of Earth and viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees north latitude and 82 degrees south every nine days. The instrument collects images from nine widely spaced view angles rather than a single perspective.

The partnership began in spring 2008, when MISR science team member Michel Verstraete of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre participated in an intensive field campaign by South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to study the environment around Kruger National Park, a major wildlife reserve in South Africa. The researchers studied the area using direct, airborne and space-based measurements. Verstraete learned of widespread interest of the South African research community in remote-sensing applications.

In response, the Institute for Environment and Sustainability and CSIR signed an agreement in July 2008 to facilitate the interaction and exchange of people, knowledge, data and software. NASA joined the partnership in 2009.

NASA is committed to helping governments, organizations and researchers around the world make effective use of Earth observation data to aid in environmental decisionmaking,” said Hal Maring, a program manager in NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington. “These efforts support the goals of the Group on Earth Observations, a partnership of international agencies that promotes collaborative use of Earth science data.”

NASA became involved in the collaboration after a training workshop for MISR users in Cape Town, South Africa, organized by JPL and Langley Research Center sparked interest in the potential use of MISR data. It soon became apparent that accessing a large volume of data was a major hurdle in developing countries generally and particularly in Africa. Even though Internet connectivity in Africa has improved greatly in recent years, access and bandwidth remain too limited to support downloading vast data files. This led CSIR to host the data directly.

CSIR, based in Pretoria, South Africa, will distribute the data at no charge to the research community in the region. CSIR also will facilitate access to the large volume of MISR data as part of its strategy of educating, training and transferring knowledge to the southern African research community.

“The data transfer can be seen as a birthday present from NASA to the newly formed South African National Space Agency,” said Bob Scholes, CSIR research group leader for ecosystem processes and dynamics. “It will kick-start a new generation of high-quality land surface products, with applications in climate change and avoiding desertification.”

NASA shipped most of the data on high-density tapes this summer. The agencies will ensure the database stays updated with current MISR observations by upgrading connectivity and facilitating sharing of data among participating academic and research institutions.

“This multiparty collaboration will significantly strengthen academic and research institutions in southern Africa and support sustainable development of the entire subcontinent,” said Verstraete, who will spend six months in southern Africa in 2011 to help the regional remote-sensing community use the data.

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Eurisy is pleased to send you its Position Paper 2010.

It provides recommendations to space policy decision-makers on how to secure the benefits of space investments for potential end-users, notably by financially supporting their access to satellite services. This would ensure potential European end-users make the most of public and private investments in space, including in programmes such as GMES and Galileo.

Download Position Paper here

The Paper highlights, among others, that:
*financial support should be allocated directly to potential end-users for them to finance the implementation and use of satellite services
*part of this financial support should come from the future Space Budget
*funds should be made available through established financing mechanisms that potential end-users are familiar with, such as INTERREG, Intelligent Energy Europe etc.
*the calls should specifically mention what operational satellite services are eligible for funding

These measures will lower the entry barriers for potential end-users, thus encouraging demand for satellite services.

The Position Paper is based on Eurisy’s grassroots work with (potential) end-user communities and on wide consultations with stakeholders. It will be presented during a high level conference organised by Eurisy in Brussels, on 19 Nov. 2010

Eurisy would like to acknowledge the valuable input given to this document by its members and partners.

Source www.eurisy.org

Next Edition of Earth to Business: The ERDAS E-Newsletter! To provide you with useful information, including significant ERDAS announcements, customer success stories and feature tips

Increasingly, geospatial information is being used to drive decisions in large organizations. In the past, geospatial technology companies focused on developing and providing solutions to data providers, geospatial service providers, airborne sensing organizations, national mapping agencies, state mapping agencies, DoD/National Programs and the natural resources sector. However, as geospatial technology capabilities have increased, more organizations outside this traditional geospatial customer base are discovering the offerings, with increasing interest in integrating this technology into their organization’s existing enterprise business system.