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Mauro Salvemini is President of EUROGI for the next two years.
This was the outcome of the election-process at EUROGI’s General
Board meeting on March 30th, in Brussels.

Mauro Salvemini has a long history in geographical information
both as researcher and manager. Because of the length of the list
of his national and international activities in the field only a few
can be mentioned. He has been an active member of EUROGI’s
Executive Committee for more than 7 years and served as Vice
President since 2003.
He has organised workshops for such EC
projects as GINIE and ETEMII, and for the EC GI & GIS workshop in
Sardinia 2005. Until the beginning of 2006 he was President of
AGILE, the European association of GI laboratories, and for the last
two years he has been the President of AMFM GIS Italia. He is also
a member of IGU (International Geographic Union) Working Group
on GI Science, and has collaborated with the GSDI association.
He is a university Professor and Researcher. Currently he is deeply
involved in the Region Sardinia project for SDI which is seen as a
landmark in both Italy and abroad.
Following his election Salvemini stated his desire to work towards
strong international relations, agreement and cooperation.
He
wishes to stimulate coherence among the members and the
involvement of users, the scientific community, and the private
sector in general and local communities in particular. INSPIRE is on
his list of top priorities.
EUROGI
Eurogi is the European umbrella organisation
representing the 6500 organisations in 20 European countries that
collectively create and use geographical information in Europe. It
is recognised as the professional voice of the GI world, and is
frequently consulted by the European Commission and others for
advice and information.
EUROpean
umbrella
organization for
Geographic
Information
Rua Artilharia Um, 107
1099-052
LISBOA
Portugal
Tel: +351 213-819-624
Fax: +351 213-819-668
www.eurogi.org
(Source EUROGI)

A Dnepr rocket laden with 14 small international satellites flew out of an underground missile silo and soared into space Tuesday on its first mission since failure struck the launcher last year.

The three-stage rocket lifted off at 0646 GMT (2:46 a.m. EDT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The 111-foot-tall booster worked as planned and its cache of payloads were successfully deployed from the rocket‘s third stage a few minutes later.
The Dnepr rocket, a retired missile from Russia‘s strategic military forces, was targeting a nearly circular Sun-synchronous orbit between 400 miles and 500 miles high.
The flight marked the Dnepr‘s resumption of launches after the rocket fell short of orbit and crashed in the Kazakh desert during its last mission in July. Investigators traced the cause of the failure to a glitch in the rocket‘s first stage control system.
Kosmotras, a joint company formed by the Russian and Ukrainian governments, markets the Dnepr booster. Kosmotras officials postponed Tuesday‘s launch from late March to replace a faulty cable in the rocket‘s third stage telemetry system, according to the company‘s Web site.
Half of the 14 satellites put in space Tuesday were orbited for Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while seven others were tiny palm-sized craft in the CubeSat program.
Three P-POD deployment systems built by students and professors at California Polytechnic State University housed seven miniature CubeSat payloads during launch. The CubeSats were to be ejected from the P-POD devices a few moments after arriving in orbit, according to project officials.
The CubeSat program – developed and run by officials at Cal Poly and Stanford University – offers universities and low-budget satellite programs an affordable way to put payloads in space.
The largest CubeSat launched Tuesday was the Multi-Application Survivable Tether experiment, which is designed to test the durability of space tethers for Tethers Unlimited, a Seattle-based company investigating concepts for tether propulsion in space.
MAST consists of three small satellites unfurled along a thin tether stretching about one kilometer long. The tether, composed of three braided lines about two one-hundredths of an inch thick, will be deployed by springs about a week after launch.
“We have developed a design for a tether structure that we believe will enable space tether systems to survive in the space environment for long durations, and we hope that the data that MAST collects will prove that it works,” said Robert Hoyt, Tethers Unlimited chief executive officer.
The middle satellite on the tether will slowly crawl along the length of the tether to look for signs of damage to the structure. Called Gadget, the tiny craft will begin operating about a week after the tether is unfolded.
Observers on the ground should be able to spot MAST as it flies overhead shortly before sunrise and after sunset. The craft will be seen as a small line about one-seventh the diameter of the Moon as viewed from Earth, according to Hoyt.
Developed for less than $1 million using a combination of NASA contract money and private funding, MAST is the company‘s first satellite. But officials hope additional craft can be launched in the future to further test tether concepts.
Two other projects are under development by Tethers Unlimited engineers to take the next step in demonstrating space tethers. One would use a tether to propel a 22-pound satellite past the Moon, but funding for the missions is uncertain, Hoyt said in an interview.
Tethers provide an alternative for space propulsion using momentum to send spacecraft into higher orbits. Space tethers can also produce electricity as they interact with Earth‘s magnetic field, according to Tethers Unlimited.
The Dnepr rocket also launched a nanosatellite testbed built by Boeing. The craft contains four diminutive microcontrollers, each of which can process more than 300 million instructions per second. The spacecraft will demonstrate systems to be used by Boeing in future satellites.
Other CubeSat payloads included CAPE 1 for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Libertad 1 for Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Colombia. The Aerospace Corporation also launched their first two-pound CubeSat spacecraft and Cal Poly will operate two development satellites hauled to space aboard the rocket.
Seven remote sensing and communications satellites were loaded on the Dnepr launcher for Tuesday‘s mission.
The Ukrainian Yuzhnoye design bureau built the 220-pound EgyptSat spacecraft under a contract with Egypt‘s National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, a government agency tasked with gathering and studying satellite imagery of the Earth.
Yuzhnoye engineers designed and manufactured EgyptSat 1, and Ukrainian trainers are helping Egyptian officials create satellite control facilities and upgrade ground stations, according to the National Space Agency of Ukraine.
The craft is fitted with cameras to take pictures of Earth, but Egypt is not providing details on the resolution and clarity of EgyptSat 1‘s imagery. The government agency operating the spacecraft specializes in monitoring natural resources, environmental changes, and large-scale disasters, according to its Web site.
SaudiSat 3, another small Earth observation craft, was also sent to orbit aboard the Dnepr rocket. The satellite was launched for Saudi Arabia‘s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.
The Saudi government agency will also manage five 26-pound SaudiComsat communications satellites launched Tuesday.
(Source Space.com)

ESA PR 18-2007. From 23 to 27 April in Montreux, Switzerland, over 900 scientists from around the world will attend the Envisat Symposium 2007 to review and present results of ESA‘s Earth Observation satellites and in particular Envisat.

ESA PR 18-2007.
From 23 to 27 April in Montreux, Switzerland, over 900 scientists from around the world will attend the Envisat Symposium 2007 to review and present results of ESA‘s Earth Observation satellites and in particular Envisat.
The main objective of the Symposium, organised by ESA with the support of the Swiss Space Office, is to present the results of ESA Earth Observation missions by providing a forum for investigators to share results of on-going research project activities using Envisat, ERS and ESA Third Party missions.
Almost all fields of Earth science will be highlighted, such as greenhouse gas concentrations, ozone hole monitoring, sea level rise, sea surface temperature, ice sheets and sea ice variations, volcanoes and earthquakes, land cover changes, among others. About 800 presentations are planned in 54 themed sessions with participants from over 40 countries worldwide.
In addition, the Symposium will provide a session dedicated to the use of Earth Observation in support of International Environmental Conventions in close collaboration with UN agencies, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and other key international and European institutional actors, such as the European Environment Agency (EEA).
A special session is planned on the GMES Programme on Thursday 26 April to present the status of the EU-led GMES Programme and the ESA-managed Space Component.
The official opening of the Symposium is scheduled for 23 April at 14.30. ESA Director General Mr Jean-Jacques Dordain will give the welcoming address followed by Mr Jean-Philippe Amstein, Director of the Swiss Federal Office of Topography, Mr Daniel Fürst, Director of the Swiss Space Office and Dr Volker Liebig, ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes. Five scientists will then present an overview of the most significant results of the Envisat and ERS missions.
Launched in 2002, Envisat is the largest environmental satellite ever built. It carries ten sophisticated optical and radar instruments to provide continuous observation and monitoring of the Earth’s land, atmosphere, oceans and ice caps, maintaining continuity with the Agency’s ERS missions started in 1991.
Generating some 280 Gigabytes of data products daily, Envisat has gathered 500 Terabytes to date and recently celebrated its fifth year in operation.
The Press is welcome to attend the Symposium starting with the official opening session on Monday 23 April at 14.30.
For further information, please contact:
Franco Bonacina
Media Relations Office
ESA Communication Department
Phone:+33(0)1.53.69.7155
Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690
Simonetta Cheli
Head of Coordination Office
Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes
ESA, ESRIN
Phone: +39 06 94180350
Fax: +39 06 94188702
media@esa.int
(Source ESA)

The launch of the German Earth Integrated satellite TerraSAR-X by the Russian-Ukrainian rocket DNEPR-1 has been rescheduled for the end of May.
The launch of the German Earth Integrated satellite TerraSAR-X by
the Russian-Ukrainian rocket DNEPR-1 has been rescheduled for the end
of May. Originally the launch of the Egyptian satellite Egyptsat
planned for the end of March by DNEPR was moved to 17 April. The German
satellite is in excellent condition and waits at Baikonur for its
mission.
TerraSAR-X is the first German Public-Private Partnership (PPP)
satellite – jointly realised by DLR and EADS Astrium. EADS Astrium has
taken on the costs of development, building and employment of the
satellite. The processing as well as the use of TerraSAR-X data for
scientific purposes is run by DLR. Infoterra GmbH, a subsidiary of the
EADS Astrium, is responsible for the commercial marketing.
The satellite will circle Earth at a height of 514 kilometres in a
polar orbit and its Earth Observation data will provide a 1-metre
resolution. TerraSAR-X will work independently of any weather and light
conditions.
Contact
German Aerospace Center
Space Agency
Tel.: +49 228 447-587
Fax: +49 228 447-747

(Source DLR)

35-year record of Earth observations from space is global scientific asset

By Cheryl Pellerin
USINFO Staff Writer
Washington – After 35 years and 2 million images of the planet’s surface – and two orbiting satellites with failing instruments and scant fuel reserves – the Landsat Earth observation program is getting a new satellite and a new, more stable, mission plan.
The Landsat satellites have produced data that scientists around the world use to monitor crops, assess water quality, map coral reefs, manage coastal zones and transportation systems, plan land use, manage emergencies and disasters, and carry out many other activities.
The newest satellite, scheduled to launch in 2011, is called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission. NASA is responsible for the space segment, which includes designing and building the satellite and the remote-sensing instrument, providing launch services, and testing the satellite once it is in orbit.
The U.S. Department of Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is responsible for the ground segment, which includes a network of ground receiving stations, a satellite operations facility and archive and image-processing facilities. After launch and testing, NASA will transfer satellite operations to USGS.

“NASA and USGS are working very hard,”
said Ronald Beck, USGS program information specialist for the Land Remote Sensing Program, “to make sure there is data continuity.”
REMOTE SENSING
Remote sensing is defined as collecting information about an object without being in physical contact with the object. Satellites are common platforms for remote-sensing observations and have been used for that purpose since the early days of space flight.
Satellite sensors acquire images of the Earth and transmit the data to ground receiving stations worldwide. Once the raw images are processed and analyzed, they can document changing environmental conditions like pollution, global climate change, natural resource distribution, urban growth and more.
The first satellite, Sputnik I, was launched in 1957. For the next 15 years, the number of satellites grew, but most satellite imagery was classified – produced and viewed mainly by government organizations for military purposes.
In 1972, the first civil satellite was launched to collect data about the Earth‘s surface and resources. The Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later renamed Landsat 1, developed by NASA, made satellite imagery available to the public for the first time.
Satellite imagery has revolutionized the study of the natural
environment and global hazards, agriculture, energy use, public health
and international policymaking. The number of satellites has increased
and there is a growing number of commercial satellites and imagery
vendors.
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE
Some experts say the data derived from Landsat’s images were a major force that led to the development of the global-scale concept of earth systems science, which involves studying processes and cycles among the planet’s atmosphere and water, ice, land and life systems, over timescales ranging from minutes to eons.
The Earth-observation program has been experimental from the first Landsat 1 satellite, inspired by NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon and launched in 1972, to the still-orbiting Landsats 5 and 7 – meaning that each satellite was a project conceived individually with little consideration for the future.
That approach changed in 2005, when John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, issued a memorandum on the issue.

“It remains the goal of the U.S. government,”
he wrote, “to transition the Landsat program from a series of independently planned missions to a sustained operational program,” funded and managed by the government, an international consortium or a commercial partnership.
FILLING THE DATA GAP
A Landsat satellite’s orbit covers the entire globe every 16 days, but the satellite acquires images of only about one-third that area because of limited processing and storage capacity. It takes one satellite about three months to map the entire globe. With Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 now in orbit, together they cover the globe every eight days.
Landsat 5 launched in 1984 and, despite a design life of three years to five years, continues to operate 23 years later, albeit with limited capability. Landsat 7, with the same design life, launched in 1999; since 2003, a sensor problem has limited its capability. Both satellites will run out of fuel in 2010 or 2011, but remote-sensing experts hope the new satellite will be in orbit before that happens.
“We think we can keep them going until early 2011,” Beck said. “The realistic problem is, what if the sensors fail this year? We’ll have to find a short-term replacement, like buying the data from India, China, France, Japan, other satellite systems, or U.S. commercial firms.”
Today, in the United States, the Future of Operational Land Imaging Working Group is leading a multiagency effort to develop a long-term plan for Landsat.
Members of the working group include the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, NASA, USGS, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and the departments of State, Energy, Agriculture, Transportation and Defense.
A report from the working group is due out in the next few months on how to handle the next generation of Landsat satellites and which agency should be in charge of land imaging for the U.S. government.
Additional information is available on the Future of Land Imaging Web site, sponsored by the Executive Office of the President.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)
(Source USInfo)

U.S. agencies responsible for the Landsat series of Earth observation satellites have agreed that the next-generation Landsat will launch in 2011, and the United States is not the only nation that will benefit from the continued imaging of the planet?s oceans, land surfaces and ice cover.

(Media-Newswire.com) – Washington —
U.S. agencies responsible for the Landsat series of Earth observation satellites have agreed that the next-generation Landsat will launch in 2011, and the United States is not the only nation that will benefit from the continued imaging of the planet?s oceans, land surfaces and ice cover.
Since 1972, a series of Landsat satellites have been orbiting Earth, collecting images from about 700 kilometers above the surface in a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit. This means the satellite circles the planet in an almost north-south direction as Earth rotates from west to east. NASA and the Department of Interior?s U.S. Geological Survey ( USGS ) share responsibility for the satellites? space and ground segments.
Landsat 5 launched in 1984 and, despite a design life of three to five years, is still operating, but with limited capability. Landsat 7 launched in 1999, and since 2003 has had a sensor problem that limits its capability. Both satellites will run out of fuel in 2010 or 2011; the next satellite, called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, is expected to launch in 2011. ( See related article. )
The USGS and NASA are very concerned about data continuity and data access, said Ronald Beck, USGS program information specialist for the Land Remote Sensing Program. We´re firmly committed to finding ways to get the data into the hands of the global science community.
SHARING GLOBAL IMAGES
Landsat data are used in various applications, including agriculture and forestry, land use planning, water resource management, coastal zone management, ecological forecasting and disaster management.
Landsat sensors have a moderate spatial resolution. Individual houses are not visible on a Landsat image, but large objects like highways are. This is an important spatial resolution because it is coarse enough for global coverage but detailed enough to characterize human-scale processes such as urban growth.
In 2001, NASA and the USGS agreed to give the international community, through the U.N. Environment Programme ( UNEP ), the global Landsat dataset — satellite images of the entire planet — for 1992 and 2000.
That $20 million worth of Landsat images is allowing environment ministers in Africa, with help from UNEP, NASA, USGS, the University of Maryland and the Earth Satellite Corp., to learn about and analyze environmental changes in their regions over eight years.
Massive sand dunes have been swept around and between rock outcroppings in the barren Libyan Desert. Only a handful of oases lie scattered across this especially arid section of the vast Sahara Desert. ( NASA photo )
Because many African countries do not have Internet access, datasets were given to ministers on high-density hard disks called “databricks” that hold hundreds of satellite images. The same data are freely accessible through Internet portals from NASA, USGS, Michigan State University and the University of Maryland.
The State Department Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs ( OES ) and the U.N. Office of Outer Space Affairs held four workshops in Africa between 2003 and 2005 to review the progress made by African institutions in using the Landsat data to address sustainable development problems, said Fernando Echavarria of the Space and Advanced Technology Office in OES.
?We also worked to make sure we were making headway in getting the Landsat data out to the regional centers of excellence,? Echavarria said. It´s a big continent and there are a lot of problems, but there´s a lot of capacity in Africa on these remote-sensing technologies.
TRACKING HEALTH THREATS
In 2000, Landsat images helped scientists from the World Health Organization ( WHO ), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Naval Medical Research Unit-3 ( NAMRU-3 ) and the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research deal with an outbreak — the first outside Africa — of Rift Valley fever in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Rift Valley fever is an acute, fever-causing viral disease that affects people and domestic animals such as cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats, and most commonly is associated with mosquito-borne epidemics during years of unusually heavy rainfall.
To support efforts by international agencies, said Assaf Anyamba, a research scientist at NASA?s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, we had to provide information for them to know where it had rained, where the vegetation had greened up. Those would be potential areas where the most creatures that carry the virus were breeding and spreading the disease.
The scientists used a Landsat image from the period during the outbreak and compared it with an image from before the outbreak.
?We could see a big difference in terms of the vegetation greenness, Anyamba said, and this allowed the teams … to look at the areas along this floodplain of the Arabian-Yemen coast and respond to that outbreak.
He added, In areas where outbreaks occur that are small and in areas of complex topography, Landsat becomes a very useful tool for analyzing the patterns and ecological conditions.
See also U.S. Agencies Moving Forward in Planning Landsat 7 Successor.
Additional information is available on the Future of Land Imaging Web site, sponsored by the Executive Office of the President.
( USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov )
This is the second article in a series on the Landsat Earth observation satellites.
By Cheryl Pellerin
USINFO Staff Writer
(Source USInfo and Media Newswire)

Remote sensing is a critical tool for agriculture, land use worldwide

Over the 35 years that U.S. Landsat Earth-observation satellites have collected images of the planet from space, scientists around the world have put the data to work in a range of applications, from agriculture and land-use planning to ecological forecasting and disaster management.
The program – a shared responsibility of NASA and the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) – also has played a role in helping those in the poorest and most resource-challenged nations harness the power of technology, including remote sensing, to make the best, most sustainable use of their natural environment.
Since the 1980s, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided core funding to the International Program at the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) in South Dakota for projects that use remotely sensed data to address resource management, land-cover change, monitoring and early warning systems in countries around the world. (See related article.)
HELP WITH FAMINE AND FLOODS
USAID established the famine early warning system (FEWS) in 1986 to help prevent famine in sub-Saharan Africa by giving decision makers specific information based on remote sensing about potential famine conditions.
In 2000, the FEWS Network was formed to establish more effective, sustainable, African-led food security and response planning networks to reduce the vulnerability of at-risk groups to famine and floods. The USGS EROS Center, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are among the contributing partners.
In 2003, USAID began funding NASA to establish SERVIR, a Web-based visualization and monitoring system for Central America and Mexico that makes satellite images and geospatial information available to decision makers, students, business communities and the public.
The system has been used for forecasting weather, monitoring fires, determining populations at risk for flooding and landslides, monitoring red tides for fisheries, analyzing climate change and mapping land cover.
“From disaster response to long-term development planning, these Earth observation technologies improve our ability to understand the integrated nature of the work we do around the world, and thus be more effective,” said Carrie Stokes, a geospatial information technology adviser at USAID.
“We can see more holistically how projects in different sectors such as economic growth, agriculture, natural resource management, health and governance can be linked to reinforce each other,” she added. “Building the capacity of people to use geospatial technologies for addressing a host of issues ranging from food security, urban development, biodiversity conservation and climate change is therefore a priority for us.”
The system uses many kinds of remotely sensed data, but Landsat imagery forms the basis for each country’s national map.
USAID also funds the West Africa Land Use and Land Cover Trends Program, an effort by USGS EROS Center scientists to work with partners in 14 countries in that region to map and quantify changes in the landscapes over the past 40 years.
MAPPING CHANGES OVER TIME
Gray Tappan is a geographer with Science Applications International Corp., a contractor for the USGS EROS Center, who works on the land-cover trends program. The effort is a challenge, he said in an April 11 USINFO interview, because of the vast land area involved and the difficulty of piecing together images from different sources.
“We’re looking at four points in time – 1965, 1975, 1985 and 2000,” he said. “It’s like making four separate maps, then we compare them and from that we derive changes. It gives us a visual graphic of the land resources and the way they were 40 years ago, or 20 years ago, and gives us statistics about the areas of forest, wetlands, urban areas and agriculture.”
In West Africa, EROS scientists have been working since 1988 with African partners at the AGRHYMET (for agriculture, hydrology and meteorology) Regional Center in Niamey, Niger, to help them build remote-sensing capacity.
In the maps, Tappan said, “we’re seeing the slow but sure expansion of agricultural lands into forested lands and savannahs, so natural vegetation is losing ground to agriculture. It is a concern – we’re seeing a fairly rapidly changing environment, driven mainly by human activity.”
The next step, he said, “is to provide this very graphic evidence to high-level policymakers in each country and begin a dialogue. We can also use computers to show what those landscapes might look like in 2020 or 2050. That kind of gets their attention.”
In another land-cover-change project in Niger, farmers improved land-clearing and farming practices and adopted better soil and water conservation and agroforestry practices. This led to a regrowth of trees and shrubs that surpasses the number that existed 30 years ago and has a positive impact on tens of thousands of rural households.
This outcome was so amazing that even the Nigeriens were skeptical, Tappan said, until remote sensing imagery “had a huge role in convincing first the Nigeriens and high-level government officials, then the world beyond, that such resources can be restored.”
This is the sort of success story that new technologies like remote sensing can help duplicate in Africa and elsewhere, according to Tappan.
“More than any other satellite out there,” he said, “it’s Landsat that allows us to do this, because Landsat was the first satellite designed to help us study Earth land resources.”
For more information on U.S. policy, see Science and Technology.
More information about the USGS EROS Center International Program is available at the USGS Web site. More information about FEWS NET and SERVIR are available on those organizations’ Web site.
(Source USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)

“Future Challenges for Local and Regional Authorities: How can Space Technology help?”, to be held on 29-30 May 2007 in Barcelona, Spain.

The aim of the Eurisy programme dedicated to Local and Regional Authorities is to facilitate the use by European regions and cities of the existing services providing solutions to some of the challenges they face (such as monitoring of the natural environment, pollution, land use, real estate, traffic management, tracking of goods and people, natural disaster management, etc).
For further information on this programme (Final Announcement and Outline Programme) and to register (Registration Form, Hotel Reservation Form, Exhibition Stand) at EURISY website

(Source EURISY)

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) has issued a Call for Participation (CFP) in the “Architecture Implementation Pilot,” which is a coordinated interoperability initiative of GEOSS, FedEO and Tri-Lateral initiatives. Responses are due by 11 May 2007 and the “Pilot Kickoff Meeting” will be held 5-6 June 2007 in ESRIN the European Space Agency‘s establishment in Italy.

This CFP seeks participants in a coordinated Architecture Implementation Pilot. A Pilot is a collaborative effort that applies open standards for interoperability to achieve user objectives in an environment representative of operational use. Outcomes include best-practices and interoperability arrangements suitable for an operational capability.
This CFP seeks proposals from organizations involved with Earth Observation systems to:
* Identify components with services, e.g., portals, catalogs and other services;
* Participate in confirming the interoperability of those identified services using standards and interoperability arrangements as identified in the preliminary architecture of the CFP; and,
* Participate in the collaborative development of societal benefit scenarios to guide testing and demonstrations of the identified interoperable services.
The CFP was initiated to solicit response for the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot. The Pilot aims to incorporate contributed components consistent with the GEOSS Architecture – using a solicited GEO Web Portal and a GEOSS Clearinghouse search facility – to access services through GEOSS Interoperability Arrangements in support of the GEO Societal Benefit Areas.
The Pilot benefits from the collaborative support of two OGC Interoperability Program Pilots:
* The Tri-Lateral Interoperability Pilot is a collaborative, operational test of open standards deployment, supporting collective requirements of organizations responsible for national and regional “Spatial Data Infrastructures” in Europe (INSPIRE), Canada (GeoConnections), and the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC).
* The Federated Earth Observation Missions (FedEO) Pilot provides a broad international venue for operational prototyping and demonstration of Earth Observation (EO) data access harmonization, interoperability requirements and protocols as defined by the European Space Agency (ESA), together with other space agencies and other OGC members.
The Architecture Implementation Pilot CFP documents can be downloaded from opengeospatial portal.
The OGC® is an international industry consortium of more than 335 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications.
(Source opengeospatial)

China‘s director of the State Oceanic Administration, Sun Zhihui, has confirmed that the country wants to make five more oceanic satellites that will include ocean color remote sensing satellites, ocean dynamic environment satellites and ocean surveillance satellites.

(April 2007) China launched the ocean color remote sensing satellite Haiyang-1B from the Taiyuan Satellite Launching Center.
For 2009, the Haiyang-2 satellite, or ocean dynamic environment satellites is in the works.
Oceanic research relies heavily on satellite ocean remote sensing technology to cover the maritime environment, disaster relief and other academic research.
According to the white paper issued by the Information Office of the State Council called “China‘s Space Activities in 2006,” in the next five years the country will start developing high-resolution Earth observation system, oceanic satellites, Earth resources satellites, and small satellites for environmental protection.
“Although China is one of only five countries in the world able to independently launch ocean color remote sensing satellites, we still lag behind developed countries in this field,” said Sun.
Sun said oceanic satellites important for marine economy, and monitoring China‘s marine rights.
He added that China should be at par with other countries in terms of satellite launching and observation technologies by 2015.
Josephine Roque