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(8 June 2009) Canada has 401.1 millions hectares of forest (10% of the world’s forests; 30% of the world boreal forest), is the world largest exporter of forest products and the world leading exporter of softwood lumber, panels, pulp and newsprint. More than 300 Canadian communities depend on forests as an economic base.

Forest sector issues and concerns about the environment and the economy have sparked a renewed interest at local, national and international levels since the last few years (i.e. carbon, biomass, risks – fires, insects; biodiversity, forest management; sector competitiveness, etc.)

Given the importance of forests to human well-being and their sensitivity to economic development and to global climate change, it is imperative to establish an inventory of forest resources and monitor their status and trends in order to observe and understand the array of processes taking place and to provide information to the decision-makers responsible for their protection and management. Earth Observation (EO) satellites, like RADARSAT-2, can provide a cost-effective means of obtaining information, products and services in vast, barren, and often inaccessible forested areas.

To this end, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Governmental Related Initiatives Program (GRIP), in collaboration with the American Society of American Foresters, American Statistical Association, International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, IUFRO – Global Network for Forest Science Cooperation, Natural Resource Canada, National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, University of Sherbrooke and the US Forest Service have initiated an international forest conference titled “Extending Forest Inventory and Monitoring over Space and Time”

More than 200 scientists and managers from around the world have gathered in Quebec City, Canada, from May 19th to May 22nd 2009, to discuss, develop and demonstrate the use and applications of EO data for forest inventory and monitoring. This international forum provided participants from scientific, governmental, non-governmental and industrial organizations an overview of EO technologies and methodologies pertaining to forest inventory and monitoring; an opportunity to become acquainted with the latest EO methods and their potential for application and to demonstrate how space based EO measurements can contribute to and support forest inventory and monitoring issues and activities through new and innovative applications.

The CSA Governmental Related Initiatives Program (GRIP) and Strategic Sector Opportunity (SSO) teams have delivered presentations related to specific Government of Canada (GoC) forest priorities (i.e. biodiversity and sustainable forest management; climate change; risks; sector competitiveness) and EO applications. In partnership with other GoC departments and agencies, the CSA-GRIP mandate is to support the development and demonstration of new applications that increase the benefits & effectiveness of GoC services for Canadians through use of EO information and resources. In the forest sector, GRIP has been developing and supporting multiple projects and initiatives, including partnerships with Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada and Parks Canada (i.e. wildfire operational systems; insects defoliation monitoring; green house gas reporting for international requirements; mapping of biomass carbon stock; operational satellite-based system for monitoring ecological integrity of Arctic national parks, etc.).

For more information click here

Source: CSA

EOportal

(16 June 2009 ) Intermediate results of forestry activity monitoring in Russia using satellite imagery were summarized. Project of regular survey of the forest condition based on satellite images, initiated by ScanEx company, has been ongoing since 2007 under the supervision of NGO Transparent World.


“Nowadays Russian forestry experiences intensive changes that had not occurred for more than 80 years. The changes concern different issues, including forest management, forest inventory, economic activities control,” explained Deputy General Director of Transparent World Dmitry Aksenov. A lot of traditional systems of data collection about forests are either destroyed, or not operating in full. Therefore, it became important to accumulate remote sensing data over the entire period of reforms, mostly starting early 2007 until present.

Project of forestry activity monitoring covered local forest divisions of Leningrad, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Kirov Regions, Republic of Karelia, Primorsky and Krasnodar Territories. Analysis of SPOT 2/4 (10 m resolution), IRS-P6 (5,6 m) and IRS-P5 images (2,5 m) enabled to detect logging sites, their boundaries, logways and main skid roads, as well as to detect a lot of forestry management infringements:

excesses in logging sites’ acreage, width and logging cycles violations;
violations of management in protection forests with restricted regimes (protected natural areas, forest reserves, etc);
loggings outside the allocated sites;
incompliance of logging methods and other parameters to those indicated in Forest Declaration.

Forestry activity monitoring using remote sensing data is carried out on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Roslesinforg”. Project results, as well as data obtained from the respective Roslesinforg branch offices about the legality of forestry-based activities, are available on «Monitoring of forestry activity» page of the Transparent World site.

“Modern problems of the forest sector (leasing relations evolution, certification, old-growth forests protection, illegal logging prevention, etc.) require the most updated and independent data to be resolved. In 2009, satellite-based monitoring of forests and forestry activity in Russia is still ongoing,” said ScanEx Vice-President Olga Gershenzon.

Usage of updated satellite information for forestry activity monitoring in Russia is possible due to the technology of ScanEx Center, which has the biggest in the country network of RS data reception ground stations, deployed in Moscow, Nizhnevartovsk, Irkutsk and Magadan. Besides, the archive of satellite imagery has been compiling since mid 90s of the last century and contains hundreds of terabytes of data of world leading RS programs.

For more information click here

Source: ScanEx and EOportal

Following an agreement between ESA, Krunichev Space Centre and Eurockot Launch Services, ESA’s next Earth Explorer mission SMOS and a secondary payload, the technology demonstrator Proba-2 satellite, will now launch on 2 November 2009.

The new November launch date follows a rescheduling of the previously announced date of 9 September. Both the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite and the secondary payload Proba-2, which is ESA’s second Project for Onboard Autonomy mission, will be launched together on a Rockot launch vehicle from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. This type of rocket was also used to launch ESA’s Earth Explorer Gravity Mission GOCE in March this year.

The SMOS satellite is currently in the south of France at Thales Alenia Space’s premises, where it has been in storage for the past year. The all-important Flight Acceptance Review has already been passed, which signalled that all the elements that make up the mission are in place for launch, so the satellite is ready and waiting to be shipped to the launch site.

ESA’s SMOS Project Manager Achim Hahne said, “Since the launch date has been rescheduled for November to allow time for a Russian launch, we are now looking at September before we can start the launch campaign and start shipping the satellite and support equipment to the launch site in Russia. Although the delay is a little disappointing the team is very much looking forward to launch in November.”

SMOS, or ESA’s Water Mission as it is known, will make global observations of soil moisture over Earth’s landmasses and salinity over the oceans. Through the use of a novel interferometric radiometer called MIRAS (Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis) developed by EADS CASA Espacio in Spain, the SMOS mission will provide global soil moisture maps at least every three days and maps of sea-surface salinity at least every thirty days.

This will lead to a better understanding of the water cycle and, in particular, the exchange processes between Earth’s surfaces and the atmosphere. Data from SMOS will help improve weather and climate models and also have practical applications in areas such as agriculture and water resource management.

Taking advantage of the launch, ESA’s Proba-2, which is a very small satellite, is being carried into space at the same time as SMOS. Proba-2 is the second in ESA’s series of small, low-cost satellites that are being used to validate new spacecraft technologies while also carrying scientific instruments. It serves as a testbed for new technologies and experiments to observe the Sun and do research into space weather.

Source ESA

GMES will give Europe a unique global environmental information system that European citizens can be proud of.


“GMES will give Europe a unique global environmental information system that European citizens can be proud of. This programme is already regarded by other countries as exemplary in terms of utilising existing operational Earth observation systems to provide critical information for decision-makers and ordinary citizens,” says Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

ESA, which is responsible for the overall management and coordination of the activities associated with the GMES space component in Europe, has now pushed ahead with the satellites in the Sentinel series by entering Phase 2 of their development. This initially comprises the manufacture of three satellites (Sentinel-1, -2 and -3) and the construction of the associated ground segment.

Until the launch of these satellites, which is slated for 2011/12, ESA will also co-ordinate the provision of the Earth observation data needed for the services currently operated by the European Community. In this way, GMES will advance step by step from the pre-operational stage through to full operational readiness. This stage will have been reached when the Sentinel satellites are in position on their respective orbits.

ESA

Sentinel-1 is an all-weather, day/night radar imaging satellite mission for land and ocean services. Weighing roughly 2.2 metric tonnes, from 2011 the satellite will orbit the Earth at an altitude of 700 km. Its orbital path will always take it across the Earth’s poles, enabling the radar instrument to scan the Earth in swaths as the planet rotates beneath it. Sentinel-1 will observe the Earth for at least seven years.

The C-band SAR (synthetic aperture radar) instrument built by Astrium is the core element of the mission. The C-band radar beam, which has a wavelength of six centimetres, penetrates forests and bushes to reach the soil beneath, so that any movements and changes to the Earth’s surface can be registered to within a few centimetres.

Synthetic aperture radar makes use of the satellite’s flight motion to simulate a considerably larger antenna than is actually present, thereby significantly improving image resolution. Sentinel-1 will actually be equipped with an active antenna consisting of 280 individual antennas. It will be possible to electronically direct the antenna at a new imaging area without having to be moved for the purpose. SAR technology thus enables several contiguous swaths to be scanned as the satellite flies over them, and these images can later be assembled to form a larger overall picture.

A further notable feature is that the radar instrument is capable of operating in four different modes, which differ primarily in terms of the corridor width covered and the resolution of the radar images – which means that Sentinel-1 can cater for many different requirements, from images of 80km-wide swaths, down to 20×20km spots.

Sentinel-1, primed by Thales Alenia Space, is specially designed to perform a broad range of tasks in the areas of environment and security. These include observing environmental phenomena, deployment for coverage of crisis areas or humanitarian relief projects following natural disasters, and support for agricultural projects – to name just a few examples.

ESA Sentinel-2 is a mission to provide high-resolution, multi-spectral images for land-based services. It will deliver sophisticated optical images in a large number of spectral ranges. Starting in 2012, the roughly 1.1-metric-tonne satellite will orbit the Earth on a sun-synchronous, polar orbit at an altitude of 786 km, providing complete global coverage in just ten days. Sentinel-2 is intended to image the Earth’s land masses from orbit for at least seven years, ensuring continuity in Europe’s optical Earth observation capabilities.

Astrium was appointed prime contractor for the design, development and integration of the platform and satellite – and now heads a European industrial consortium whose core team members are as follows: Astrium SAS is responsible for the payload instrument and system support activities; Boostec, France, is supplying the silicon-carbide telescope with three mirrors; Astrium Madrid-Barajas is in charge of structural and thermal work on the satellite; Jena-Optronik, Germany, is responsible for the electrical instrument architecture, including video signal processing and data compression; and Sener, Spain, is supplying the mechanism for calibrating and the protection of the instruments. As prime contractor, Astrium Friedrichshafen will also perform the entire satellite integration and associated testing. Astrium Toulouse will supply the multi-spectral instrument which will deliver optical images in 13 spectral channels in the visible and short-wave infrared range down to a resolution of 10m with an image width of 290km.

It is planned to extend the overall Sentinel-2 system by a second satellite later on so that, by operating the two satellites simultaneously, it will be possible to provide global coverage every five days.

Sentinel-3 is a satellite designed to deliver infrared radiometry, i.e. high-precision temperature readings, altimetry (altitude measurements) via radar, and multi-spectral images with a ground resolution of 500–1,000m. This combination of measurements is vital for coastal surveillance, forecasting of ocean currents and waves, and for environmental data on land. It will thus be used for global monitoring of oceans and land areas. The first Sentinel-3 satellite is scheduled for launch in 2012. Astrium is bidding to deliver important, flight-proven instruments for this satellite. Astrium Espana has already been selected to prime the microwave radiometer. Thales Alenia Space is prime contractor for the satellite.

The gradual implementation of GMES has been made possible through joint activities and investments by ESA and the EU member states. It thus constitutes the second flagship of European space policy after the Galileo navigation system. By its very nature, Earth observation is first and foremost a huge adventure for science and technology. But over the last few years it has also become an important part of the economy – in the first instance through operation of the satellites, controlling them in orbit, and recording and distribution of the data acquired. Seen as a whole, however, the marketing of this information today adds real value to this knowledge.

SOURCE

The use of Google Earth to make a virtual discovery, which then led to an actual one, is just the latest example of how the spread of satellite technology – and related computer applications such as Google Earth – are changing the way scientists, conservationists, and ordinary citizens are monitoring the environment and communicating their findings to the public.

In October 2008, scientists with the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew discovered a rich pocket of biodiversity, including several notable new species, in a remote highland forest in Mozambique. Trekking into the inaccessible, 17,000-acre region, botanists and biologists found 200 types of butterflies, hundreds of plant species, and numerous animals and insects, including three new species of Lepidoptera butterfly and a new member of the poisonous Gaboon viper family.

What’s significant about this find is that it was initiated not by some intrepid adventurer, but rather by a scientist sitting behind his computer. Three years prior, conservationist Julian Bayliss identified the site – Mount Mabu – using Google Earth. Bayliss, a Tanzanian ecologist, then helped plan and lead the expedition.

The use of Google Earth to make a virtual discovery, which then led to an actual one, is just the latest example of how the spread of satellite technology – and related computer applications such as Google Earth – are changing the way scientists, conservationists, and ordinary citizens are monitoring the environment and communicating their findings to the public.

Once the exclusive domain of the military, government officials, and specialised scientists, satellite technology is being democratised and is fast becoming an indispensable tool for researchers across a wide spectrum of environmental fields. In the past several years, one of the chief uses for satellite imagery has been to accurately quantify the loss of tropical forests from the Amazon, to the Congo, to Indonesia. In Brazil, scientists and state environmental protection officials can now monitor fires and forest clearing almost in real-time and take action to combat the deforestation.

But perhaps the most revolutionary advance in using satellites to monitor the planet has been the ever-widening use of remote sensing technology by ordinary citizens. Google Earth has been instrumental in this development and represents a critical point in its evolution, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to attach data to a geographic representation of Earth. Citizens and environmental groups are now using Google Earth to tracks threats to pristine rivers from hydroelectric projects, catalogue endangered species, help indigenous people in the Amazon protect their land, and alert citizens and government officials that boats are illegally fishing off the Canary Islands.

“A decade ago, high-resolution satellite imagery for the whole planet would have been accessible only to a handful of people working in government agencies, resource extraction, or as scientists,” said David Tryse, an Internet technology specialist – and ordinary citizen – who has developed numerous Google Earth applications now being used by scientists and conservation groups. “Today it is in the hands of millions of people. It’s impossible to care about something if you don’t know it exists, but now people can fly across the planet and zoom in to see for themselves the huge fires from Shell’s gas-flaring operations in the Nigerian delta or follow the discoloured toxic runoff along a hundred kilometres of rain forest river downstream from a goldmine in Peru or Indonesian Papua.”

The first launch of a non-weather satellite for civilian use occurred in 1972, when NASA put Landsat into orbit to monitor the planet’s landmasses, tracking everything from desertification to changes in agriculture. Since then, ever-more sophisticated satellites have used cameras and a variety of sensors – including passive microwave, which can penetrate clouds to image the earth’s surface, and infrared sensors that can measure temperatures – to monitor a host of physical processes. One of the key functions has been the use of passive microwave technology to chronicle the steady decline of Arctic sea ice over the past 30 years.

Today, many countries use satellites to monitor their environment, including Brazil, which has one of the world’s most sophisticated systems for tracking deforestation. Brazil uses two systems that can rapidly identify where forest loss is occurring, giving the country’s environmental protection agency the technical capacity – although not necessarily the political will – to combat deforestation as it happens. Those systems rely on optical sensors and thus cannot see through clouds, but Brazil will soon launch its own earth observation satellite with cloud-penetrating technology, known as LIDAR.

Greg Asner of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University has used advanced LIDAR technology to scan a Hawaiian forest and identify alien plant species by their canopies and the amount of ground plants that grow under them.

A new frontier for remote sensing is the emergence of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), a mechanism for compensating tropical countries for conserving their forests. To date, one of the biggest hurdles for the concept has been establishing credible national baselines for deforestation rates – in order to compensate countries for “avoided deforestation”, officials must first know how much forest the country has been clearing on a historical basis. For the remote sensing community, REDD presents an opportunity to showcase the power of remote sensing and generate a source of funding for countries to improve their sensing capabilities.

Introduced in 2005, Google Earth – which can be downloaded for free – aggregates and organises satellite imagery, aerial photography, and three-D global information system data from a range of sources and presents it in a format that is easily accessible to the general public. Through KML, Google Earth’s programming language, users “interact” with the planet, attaching images and other information to geospatial data. This makes Google Earth an ideal tool for conservationists, such as the group Save the Elephants, which tracks the movement of elephants across Africa to see where they come into conflict with humans and where they forage. To further such conservation goals, Google has developed its Outreach program, an initiative that works with nonprofits to develop tools using Google Earth.

Part of the inspiration for Google Earth Outreach came from within the company itself. Rebecca Moore, a programmer at Google, used Google Earth to document a planned logging project near her home in Santa Cruz County, Calif. Working with members from her community, Moore created a virtual map of the area that would be affected. Her subsequent data animation, which took users on a virtual flyover across the proposed logging zone, generated a firestorm of protest and led to the cancellation of the project. Google Outreach was established shortly thereafter, in June 2007, with Moore in charge.

“Because Google Earth provides, for many areas, such a realistic model of the real earth, you almost feel as if you are on that mountaintop or looking over that valley,” said Moore. “This immersive experience enables conservation organisations to convey complex environmental issues more quickly and persuasively to busy decision-makers, the media and the general public.”

Many scientists have begun to adapt Google Earth technology to their research and their communications with the public. The technology also has emerged as an effective way to publish scientific results in an accessible and meaningful format. While Google Earth is not going to replace scientific journals, it offers a concise, visual format for presenting research that can be more compelling than data points on a chart, rows in a spreadsheet, or a 4-color map.

Mark Mulligan of the Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Group at King’s College London has capitalised on the power of Google Earth to create HealthyPlanet.org, an initiative that allows people to virtually see, and sponsor, a specific piece of many of the planet’s 77,000 protected areas. His group also worked on an application, Costing Nature, that allows users to trace stream flow in an urban area back to the protected area where it fell as rainfall, providing a potent example of the value of ecosystem services. In addition, Mulligan’s team has developed Google Earth applications examining the impact of oil production in the Ecuadorean Amazon and the distribution of tropical cloud forests.

“Traditionally remote sensing data have been difficult to get hold of, difficult to process, and beyond the means of many of the smaller conservation organisations,” said Mulligan. “Google Earth allows these organisations to look at their projects from space and draw upon a wealth of environmental data, in addition to the imagery. Clearly, conservation needs good professionals working with communities on the ground, but it also needs to harness the significant body of interested citizens who can do their bit.”

Google Earth is also being used for original research. One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science last year, was based on an analysis of 8,510 cattle spotted in Google Earth images of 308 pastures and plains around the world. Surprisingly, two-thirds of the cattle – as well as a majority of 3,000 grazing deer monitored in satellite photos from the Czech Republic – tended to align themselves with the Earth’s magnetic field lines, in a north-south direction. The research employed satellite technology to spot a phenomenon that literally had been hiding in plain sight for millennia: that large, non-migratory land animals were affected by the earth’s magnetism. (Earlier studies had established that magnetism guided the long-distance migrations of birds, fish, butterflies, and animals.)

Among the ordinary citizens who have been most active in marshaling the power of Google Earth for environmental work is David Tryse. His interest in conservation led him to develop an application for the Zoological Society of London’s “EDGE of Existence” program, an initiative to promote awareness of – and generate funding for – 100 of the world’s rarest species. His application allows people to surf the planet to see photos of endangered species, information about their habitat, and the threats they face. Tryse also has used Google Earth to track deforestation worldwide, highlight hydroelectric threats to Borneo’s rivers, map global biodiversity hot spots, and monitor encroachment on the lands of isolated, indigenous tribes around the world.

The Jane Goodall Foundation, a partner in a project known as Google Earth Outreach, uses Google Earth three-dimensional images to show Tanzanian villagers that forests are the source of their water and to enlist the villagers in identifying chimpanzee habitat and elephant paths.

One of the first Google Earth Outreach projects involved indigenous tribes in the Amazon rain forest. Facing an onslaught of threats to their lands and culture, the tribes have embraced advanced technology as a means of protecting and better managing their homeland. The tribes – including the Surui in western Brazil and the Wayana and Trio in Suriname – are using GPS to map their lands, plot rivers, sites of spiritual significance, and their resources, including medicinal plants and rich hunting grounds. The Rainforest Foundation UK and the Global Canopy Program are taking a similar approach in Congo and Cameroon, respectively, helping communities map their lands to protect against illegal logging and other forms of encroachment.

“Google Earth is used primarily for vigilance,” said Vasco van Roosmalen, Brazil program director for the Amazon Conservation Team, an organisation that has co-ordinated the Google Earth project with the tribes. “Indians log on to Google Earth and study images, inch by inch, looking to see where new gold mines are popping up or where invasions are occurring. They can see river discoloration, which could be the product of sedimentation and pollution from a nearby mine. They are able to use these images to find the smallest gold mine.”

As Chief Almir Surui of the Suri tribe put it, “The Surui know little about the Internet, but Google knows little about the forest, so working together we will be stronger”.

First published in Yale Environment 360 on March 26, 2009.

About the Author

Rhett Butler is the founder and editor of Mongabay.com, one of the leading sites on the Web covering tropical forests and biodiversity. In previous articles he has written about how the global commodities boom accelerated clearing of the Amazon and about the burgeoning wildlife trade in Laos.

SOURCE

ERDAS Inc. announces that T-MAPY is now the official ERDAS distributor to customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Based in Hradec Králové, T-MAPY has offices throughout the Czech Republic. Founded in 1992, T-MAPY is a subsidiary of T-Kartor, the official ERDAS distributor in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

T-MAPY specializes in GIS and cartography, with expertise in the domains of hydrographical, aeronautical, land mapping, transport management decision support, urban planning, complex municipality GIS and crisis management. As an ERDAS distributor, T-MAPY provides local market reach, as well as proven experience with data sharing, enterprise and visualization solutions.

“ERDAS products compliment our portfolio, with world leading solutions for authoring, managing, connecting and delivering geospatial information,” said Milan Novotny, Managing Director, T-MAPY. “As a key member of the T-Kartor Group, we are extending the ERDAS distribution from the Nordic region to Central Europe, building off of T-Kartor’s synergies for customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.”

T-MAPY will provide sales, technical support, training and services, including software customization and project consulting of all ERDAS products. Implementing Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) compliance, ERDAS technologies solve business and interoperability problems, increasing customers’ performance and functionality to meet a wide range of geospatial needs.

“We are excited to have T-MAPY as our distributor in the Czech Republic and Slovakia,” said Thomas Bayer, Vice President EMEA, ERDAS. “T-MAPY brings experience and innovation to ERDAS users in this part of the world, ensuring the most comprehensive support of our products and services.”

For more information about T-MAPY, please visit http://www.tmapy.cz/public/tmapy/en/_first_page.html.
For more information about ERDAS, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit http://www.erdas.com.

About ERDAS

ERDAS – The Earth to Business Company – helps organizations harness the information of the changing earth for greater advantage.

ERDAS creates geospatial business systems that transform our earth’s data into business information, enabling individuals, businesses and public agencies to quickly access, manage, process and share that information from anywhere.

Using secure geospatial information, ERDAS solutions improve employee, customer and partner visibility to information, enabling them to respond faster and collaborate better. It also means better decision-making, increased productivity and new revenue streams.

ERDAS is a part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden. For more information about ERDAS or its products and services, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit www.erdas.com.

Media Contacts:
Jason Sims
ERDAS Inc.
Marketing Manager
5051 Peachtree Corners Circle, Suite 100
Norcross, GA 30092
Phone: +1 770 776 3400 or +1 866 534 2286
E-mail: Jason.Sims@erdas.com

Space & Satellite experts from the MENA region line-up for Global Space Technology Forum as UAE’s first government satellite heads for summer launch

The UAE is forging ahead with the development of a national space industry and its pioneering role can help accelerate the establishment of a Pan Arab space agency which would reduce the cost of sending satellites into orbit.

The recent announcement by Abu Dhabi based 4C GEOC for a US$1 billion dollar Earth Observation Space Center, Yahsat’s planned telecommunication satellites launches and the scheduled launch this summer of the UAE’s first ingeniously built remote sensing satellite, DubaSat-1, is further evidence that the UAE is showing the way forward for Arab countries in the creation of a regional space programme.

The need for the UAE to lead Arab countries into space was highlighted by senior delegates at the Global Space Technology Forum launched in Abu Dhabi last November, and that message is being underlined in the countdown to this year’s event which will attract experts from NASA to the UAE capital for the first time in December.

The establishment of an Arab Space Research Agency is seen as essential to combine talent, information and technology between countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and plans have already been submitted to governments across the region.

“With the UAE Government already working hard to develop science and technology, the Emirates is seen as the logical venue for the agency’s headquarters,” said Nick Webb, Director of Streamline Marketing Group, organisers of the Global Space Technology Forum. “Regional governments have been studying plans and more detailed proposals are being formulated.

“The Middle East, North Africa and Indian Subcontinent as a whole are keen to enter the space age in a big way in order to benefit from the enormous opportunities offered by next generation space research and commercial space applications.”

Due to be launched in the summer from the Baikonur complex in Kazakstan, the former centre for the Soviet space programme, DubaiSat-1 will provide data for infrastructure development, rural and urban development planning, management of natural disasters and provision of accurate maps.

It is among more than 20 emerging national space projects in the Middle East and Africa, a region which is rapidly evolving as one of the key growth markets for the global space industry.

This will be highlighted at the second Global Space Technology Forum, (http://www.smg-conferences.com/gstf/) taking place at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre from 7-9 December, which will draw senior representatives from space agencies and national space programmes, government officials and policy makers, as well as entrepreneurs, investors, engineers, scientists, and airline and aerospace senior management.

The event combines a three-day exhibition of the latest space technology equipment and services with a two-day conference outlining global policy relating to private ventures and future projects in space, new technology and research efforts making space access easy and affordable.

The forum will provide a platform for decision makers representing Middle East Space and Satellite projects from countries such as Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Oman, Vietnam, UAE and Algeria to come together for the first time to discuss Space and Satellite Technology, and join representatives of the NASA, European Space Agency, and other prestigious space programmes worldwide. A series of special closed-door meetings will allow decision makers representing leading Middle East space programmes and other emerging space markets to discuss their requirements and projects.

The Forum will be rounded off on the final day by a high level Advanced Sat-Com Conference spotlighting the advances in satellite communications which are slowly revolutionising the communication sector.

Highlighting the UAE’s pioneering role in regional space industry developments is Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat), the country’s first nationally-owned satellite operator.

Last year Yahsat signed an agreement with the UAE Armed Forces to provide secure satellite communications in the UAE following an earlier agreement with Arianespace, the European launch service and solutions company, to launch the Yahsat 1A satellite in the fourth quarter of 2010. Another agreement has been signed with International Launch Services (ILS) to launch the Yahsat 1B satellite in first half of 2011.

The 2009 Global Space Technology Forum is expected to grow on last year’s launch event, which saw 32 leading experts from worldwide space organisations addressing a targeted audience of just over 250 conference delegates, with almost 1100 professionals attending the event overall.

The event has gained official support from the UAE Space Reconnaissance Center, the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology and the UAE Society of Engineers, in addition to industry media partners SpaceNewsfeed UK, Spacelinks and Geoconnexion.

© 2009 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

SOURCE AlBawaba

ESPI released a report on space-based services. The study investigates the main challenges to the development of space-based services in Europe and suggests relevant actions to decision-makers in order to fully exploit the potential of the well-developed European space-based infrastructure.

Over the past decades, Europe has made considerable investments in the development of its space infrastructure which is now substantial. European institutions and citizens, however, are still far from being able to take full advantage of what this infrastructure could offer them. With the growing political dimension of Europe, closer relations between ESA and the European Union, and the search for new sources of funding for space and new applications, European space activities have entered a new era and the investments made in the infrastructure could be further optimised. The focus is shifting from space systems to their applications and there is now strong political interest in the development of services, which could support European policies and further contribute to the European citizens’ welfare. Recent European initiatives to foster the development of new space-based services have nevertheless yielded limited results. Publicly funded programmes have led to the successful demonstration of new applications but most of these applications have not turned into operational services.

The study “Space-based Services in Europe – Addressing the Transition between Demonstration and Operation”, led by ESPI Research Fellow Charlotte Mathieu, investigates the main challenges to the transition from demonstration to operation in Europe, analyses the need for public action and suggests to European decision-makers relevant measures that could ensure that European citizens fully benefit from a well-developed space infrastructure. It emphasises the need for coordinated actions of all the stakeholders in Europe and for leadership in order to achieve a significant, large-scale development of space-based services in Europe, which could enable European decision-makers and citizens to reap the full benefits of their space infrastructure.

by ESPI Research Fellow Charlotte Mathieu
Source

ESPI Studies

Download ESPI Report 17
Space -based Services in Europe – Addressing the Transition between Demonstration and Operation

South Africa expects to launch its second microsatellite into low Earth orbit by June, after several cancellations.

If all goes well, the R26 million Sumbandila satellite (SumbandilaSat) will take to the heavens from Severemosk in Russia. Sumbandila is Venda for “lead the way”.

The satellite will be launched after midnight from a Russian nuclear-powered missile submarine in the icy Barents Sea as part of a Russian navy exercise.

The 18 200 ton Delta Class 4 sub, which is as long as one-and-a-half football pitches, will use a modified Shtil 2.1 intercontinental ballistic missile as a launch vehicle to place the satellite into an orbit 500km above earth.

The satellite will be controlled from an operations centre outside Pretoria. It has a lifespan of three years.

It is the culmination of talks involving satellite developer SunSpace, the Department of Science and Technology, Russia’s navy and space agency, the US and states along the flight path.

SumbandilaSat will give South Africa more access to space technology and strengthen its role in space initiatives.

These include the SA Environmental Observations Network and the African Resource and Environmental Constellation Programme.

The 81kg microsatellite will generate satellite imagery at a resolution equivalent to 6.25 metres above the ground. It will send the images to the ground tracking station at the Hartebeeshoek satellite application centre in Pretoria and a back-up station at the Overberg test range near Arniston.

It is an earth observation satellite system and its main payload is a remote sensing camera.

by Wiseman Khuzwayo
Source

As North Korea keeps the world’s militaries worried with what it claims was a satellite-launch attempt, South Korea is quietly preparing its first satellite mission for a July launch date.

Lee Joo-jin, president of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, told a Washington audience late last week that the first Korea Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV-1) is scheduled to launch a 100-kilogram (220-pound) scientific satellite into low Earth orbit in July.

The liquid oxygen/kerosene rocket will lift off from the NARO Space Center on Oenaro Island in southwest Korea on a mission to orbit the country’s second Science and Technology Satellite (SCISAT-2).

Based on previous South Korean micro-satellite technology, SCISAT-2 will carry the Dual-channel Radiometers for Earth & Atmosphere Monitoring (DREAM) instrument, and the Laser Reflector Array (LRA). DREAM is designed to measure Earth’s brightness, while the LRA will allow precise measurements between the spacecraft and a ground station.

“As we develop our own satellite launch vehicles, the second one will be around 2017,” Lee said. “We plan a lunar orbiter and a lunar lander, based on the KSLV-2 to send our satellite to the moon.”

Under South Korea’s guiding space-development legislation, the lunar orbiter would come in 2020, with a lander to follow in 2025.

Lee said his agency is working with NASA on scientific objectives for its lunar missions, and a technical team is scheduled to visit Seoul later this month to continue bilateral talks on a variety of cooperative efforts.

The South Korean government has continued to support the space program, which also uses U.S.-built communications satellites and launch vehicles as well as domestic Earth-observation spacecraft, Lee said. The country also is a participant in ongoing multilateral talks aimed at creating a “Global Exploration Strategy” to guide international human exploration of the moon and other bodies.

Lee cited the recent trip to the International Space Station (ISS) of Yi So-yeon, a South Korean astronaut who spent 10 days on the orbiting laboratory after launching on a Russian Soyuz, and said his agency would like to work with NASA and its space station partners to conduct long-duration experiments on the ISS.

However, Michael O’Brien, assistant NASA administrator for external relations, said that with the shuttle retiring as early as next year all of the seats are taken, and experiment space on the ISS is scarce for now.

However, with NASA developing a six-seat version of the Orion crew exploration vehicle for transport to the ISS, it may be possible to accommodate astronauts from Korea and other nations that aren’t station partners in the future.

Photo of fairing separation test for KSLV-I DM: KARI
By Frank Morring, Jr