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Eurisy New President
Ms. Dominique Tilmans, President of the Space group of the Belgian Senate, has been elected as new Eurisy President during the General Assembly that took place on 22 June 2016 in Paris.​

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Eurisy General Assembly
The Eurisy Council has been renewed during the annual General Assembly. The Council is divided between the College of Full Members – Major contributors, the College of Full members and the College of External Expertise.
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Stefano Cavazzi and Gobe Hobona explain how crowdsourced geoinformation can be conflated with authoritative datasets to realise enhanced defence-oriented products

In our rapidly-changing world, information has never been more strategic to decision making. The new information landscape is associated with social media, high-speed networks and distributed information sharing from people all around the world. Smartphones with built-in GPS and survey capabilities enable anyone to create open source geospatial datasets, transforming the way in which information is produced.

Addressing concerns

Thousands of people already collect geospatial data, as in the case of the OpenStreetMap (OSM) initiative where volunteers contribute to the creation of a global map. This collective approach, defined as crowdsourcing, might raise concerns over the quality of the information collected.

To address such concerns, it is useful to define quality in terms of currency, precision and completeness. Conventional mapping is updated at periodic intervals while the OSM depends on users’ intervention. The latter can confer a significant advantage where, thanks to their local expertise, users are capable of detecting and recording change almost in real time.

The same advantage is also valid in the case of precision although, again, OSM can be more variable than conventional mapping depending on user input. Finally, in terms of completeness, OSM has contributed significantly in placing areas of the developing world finally on the map.

One can also note the crowdsourcing community’s rapid and effective response to specific emergency events such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake where Non-Governmental Organisations and volunteers collaborated in generating real-time crisis mapping. Such work continues to this day wherever disaster strikes. With regard to reliability, OSM ultimately benefits from a vast user community that not only contributes to the creation of the map but also uses it on a daily basis.

Authoritative data such as those produced by National Mapping Agencies (NMAs) are tried- and-tested and integrate well with applications and systems developed over the years by third parties. However, NMAs are under pressure to trim their budgets and find new cost-saving ways of delivering information to the same standard but with fewer resources. This ultimately impacts the collection of geospatial data and limits its currency and completeness.

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US: United States Geological Survey (USGS) has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to Atlantic. The contract was given under the Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) category for 5 years. According to the contract, Atlantic will complete task orders nationwide to support geospatial needs of the USGS and its partners.

“Putting Atlantic in a position to win this prestigious contract has been a constant goal over the past several years,” said Brian Mayfield, President and COO of Atlantic. “We have made many strategic decisions to design our company to be a great partner to the USGS and are very excited to have the opportunity to support the USGS in providing professional surveying and mapping services nationwide.”

The USGS is working to complete 3DEP, a program that is designed to meet the growing needs for high-quality topographic data for the entire United States. It is anticipated that a large portion of the total contract capacity available to the USGS will be used to satisfy the requirements of 3DEP.

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US: BAE Systems was awarded with a $75 mn contract from the U.S. Army on Tuesday. The contract was given to provide assistance in development of next-generation geospatial intelligence capabilities for the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command.

Its services come under a five-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity award from INSCOM for its Military Intelligence Brigade – Theatre Integrated GEOINT Divisions.

“We are proud to support the development of solutions that enhance the situational awareness and safety of our men and women in uniform,” said DeEtte Gray, president of BAE Systems’ Intelligence & Security sector.

Under the contract, which has a value of as much as $75 million, BAE Systems will assist in the exploitation and processing of geospatial data and develop various intelligence products for GEOINT Divisions and assist the Army with next-generation geospatial intelligence developmental and experimental intelligence collection systems and technologies.

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The twin Sentinel-1 satellites have – for the first time – combined to show their capability for revealing even small deformations in Earth’s surface. Following its orbital manoeuvres, the recently launched Sentinel-1B satellite reached its designated orbit position on 15 June.

The satellite is now orbiting Earth 180 apart from its twin, Sentinel-1A, at an altitude of almost 700 km. With both satellites finally in the same orbit, together they can cover the whole globe every six days. The two-satellite ‘radar vision’ mission for Europe’s Copernicus programme carries an advanced radar to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface.

It has now been demonstrated that future images acquired by the pair can be merged to detect slight changes occurring between scans. This technique is particularly useful for generating accurate maps of surface deformation over wide areas, such as those caused by tectonic processes, volcanic activities or landslides.

It is also an ideal tool for monitoring glacier flow and changes in Arctic and Antarctic ice shelves. Sentinel-1’s first such paired ‘interferogram’ combined a Sentinel-1A scan over southern Romania on 9 June with a Sentinel-1B acquisition over the same area just one day before reaching its target orbit position.

Another interferogram over northwest Romania was produced shortly after Sentinel-1B reached its final orbit.

The rainbow-coloured patterns are related to topography, and they demonstrate that the two satellites’ identical radars are accurately synchronised, pointing in the same direction and that the satellites are in their correct orbits.

Once commissioning is completed in mid-September, the pair will be ready to deliver data for the systematic and routine monitoring of Earth surface deformation and ice dynamics.

“After the great success of generating the first radar image less than three days after liftoff, I am very happy to report another outstanding success as it is the generation of the first interferograms with Sentinel-1B on the same day that we reached the orbital position, 180 apart from Sentinel-1A,” said ESA’s Sentinel-1 project manager, Ramon Torres.

“It is of paramount importance to the mission that we have demonstrated, at the first try, that the two Sentinel-1 satellites work very well together.”

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ESA is inviting twenty Android and iOs app developers to a space app camp.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is inviting, for the fifth time, 20 developers to a location in Italy for an intense space app camp. This event will be held from September 12.19, 2016 in Frascati, Italy. The objective is to create a variety of apps based on varied earth observations from the Copernicus programme.

Topics

The themes include; agriculture, environmental protection, lifestyle, tourism and health, smart cities and transport and logistics. ESA will provide access to satellite data for the development of Mobil applications in the Android and IOs operating systems. A dedicated API will allow developers to integrate satellite data into their apps.

Candidates

Participation in this project is open to adults with or without experience integrating earth observation data into apps. They must belong to one of the following countries; the ESA member states, countries involved in the Horizon 2020 programme and states participating in the Copernicus Space Component.

Prizes

Participants will chose the topic of their preference and apply individually or in groups of two or four. Eventually, the selected aspirants will form groups of four. After one week, the participants will present their project to a jury, who will decide on the winning team and present the cash prize of 2,500 euros.

Travel expenses and accommodation

The selected participants will be contacted around mid-August to organize travel itinerary and hotel bookings. Since this is an invitation from ESA, the programme is free of charge and the agency will pay for all travel and hotel expenses with full board. At the headquarters in Italy, ESA will provide working settings with internet and access to satellite data.

Registrations will open from June 1 to July 22, 2016 and the selected participants will be notified from August 7-14, 2016. App developers are expected to arrive at their hotels on September 11, 2016 and develop their apps from September 12-19, 2916, leaving the camp on the last day-Sep 19, at the headquarters.

App developers are expected to bring their own wireless devices.

Google’s free online mapping service is bringing the world into better focus with an updated version of Earth that takes advantage of photos from a US Landsat 8 satellite.

The Internet giant introduced a “cloud-free mosaic” of this planet three years ago at Google Earth, and on Monday began rolling out a new version that uses new techniques to process sharper images gathered by the satellite sent into orbit in 2013, as part of a collaboration between NASA and the US Geological Survey.

Google Earth previously relied on images from a Landsat 7 satellite, which encountered a hardware problem that resulted in large diagonal gaps in pictures, according to program manager Chris Herwig.

“Landsat 8 captures images with greater detail, truer colors and at an unprecedented frequency,” Herwig said in a blog post.

Google Earth creates unobstructed views of the surface of the planet by analyzing millions of images and stitching together the clearest bits, according to Herwig.

Google Earth is part of free online mapping services offered by California-based Alphabet.

Landsat has observed the Earth from space since 1972, gathering a wealth of information on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time.

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On 10 September 2016 about 2000 citizens from 22 European countries will participate in the first Citizens’ Debate on Space for Europe. In the course of the day, citizens will have the opportunity to learn, debate, have their say and participate by suggesting priorities on all aspects of current and future space programmes.

This consultation on an unprecedented scale will take place simultaneously in all 22 Member States of the European Space Agency (ESA). Missions Publiques, the company that has been brought in by ESA to organise this consultation and conduct the debate, will gather approximately 100 citizens per Member State at various locations. Those selected will be as representative as possible of the population of their country according to socio-demographic criteria. The results of the consultation will be collated – as early as 48 hours after the debate takes place – and communicated to ESA.

Referring to this initiative, ESA Director General Jan Woerner, emphasised his commitment to ESA being more open to society and to further engaging in a dialogue with European citizens, and said, “Spaceflight, space science, exploration, Earth observation, telecommunication, satellite navigation, space technology and innovation can all help respond to societal challenges and be a source of inspiration to future generations. European citizens can help us better asses our priorities”.

The Citizens’ Debate on Space for Europe is a major first – never before has the future of space activities been addressed in such an event held across so many countries.

For more information, and to apply to take part in the debate, visit http://citizensdebate.space

About the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space.

ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, of whom 20 are Member States of the EU.

ESA has established formal cooperation with seven other Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.

By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes.

ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities.

Today, it develops and launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space.

Learn more about ESA at www.esa.int

About Missions Publiques

Missions Publiques is a company specialised in citizen participation and policy dialogue with more than fifteen years of experience in this innovative field. Its team has expertise at local, national, European and global level. Missions Publiques has cooperated with 20 different organisations in helping to implement the Citizens’ Debate on Space for Europe across ESA Member States.

For further information, please contact:
Nathalie Meusy
ESA Citizens’ Debate Project Manager
Email: contact@citizensdebate.space

[Via Satellite 06-28-2016] Geospatial big data startup Orbital Insight has raised $20 million in funding through a $15 million Series B round and an investment and development agreement from In-Q-Tel. GV, formerly Google Ventures, led the round, with participation from CME Ventures, and existing investors Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, and Bloomberg Beta.

With this new round of funding, Orbital Insight plans to continue refining its ability to extract analysis from satellite imagery. The company will also work to expand its range of detectable signals, and hire more experts in the machine vision and data science fields.

Orbital Insight works at the intersection of big data and the commercialization of space. To obtain its imagery, the company has developed partnerships with DigitalGlobe, Airbus, Planet Labs, Rapid Eye, and UrtheCast. According to the company, these contracts enable testing and development of algorithms on a higher volume of imagery than almost any organization in history.

Orbital Insight has developed algorithms to count and measure cars, roads, airplanes, clouds, haze, freshwater lakes, agricultural fields, buildings, and oil tanks using satellite and drone imagery to provide a big-picture understanding of the world. To date the startup has worked with more than 60 asset management firms, several U.S. government agencies, and two global non-profit organizations.

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1st July 2016, Today, an important milestone has been passed in the commissioning of the US-European Jason-3 ocean-monitoring mission launched on 17 January 2016 with the release of the near-real time (NRT) Operational Geophysical Data Records (OGDR) and the non-time critical (NTC) Interim Geophysical Data Record (IGDR) to all users.

The OGDRs include estimates of significant wave height, wind speed, and a first estimate of sea surface height based on orbit data and atmospheric corrections available in real time.

They are disseminated to users within three hours of observation. IGDRs are distributed within two days of observation and provide more accurate estimates of sea surface height thanks to improved orbit determination.

Over recent months, engineers from CNES, EUMETSAT, NOAA and NASA and scientists from the international Ocean Surface Topography Science Team have been evaluating the Jason-3 OGDRs and IGDRs.

During this period, Jason-3 was flying in tandem with Jason-2, approximately 80 seconds apart, for the purpose of cross-calibration of sea surface height measurements at sub-centimetre level.

The OGDR and IGDR products will now be used worldwide for sea state forecasting, monitoring of marine environment and assimilation into models of the ocean or the coupled ocean-atmosphere system for ocean and seasonal forecasting.

Dr Saleh Abdalla, a scientist at ECMWF, said: “The assimilation of Jason-3 OGDR sea surface height and significant wave height into the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System improves the operational medium- to long-range weather forecasts and surface wind speed and total column water vapour measurements are important for model verification.”

During the first Jason-3 verification workshop on 21 June, the European and US partners in the programme also decided to switch the operational service from Jason-2 to Jason-3 and to move Jason-2 to an interleaved orbit in Mid-September, to increase space and time coverage in line with user needs.

EUMETSAT Director of Operations and Services to Users Livio Mastroddi said: “This milestone opens EUMETSAT’s delivery of operational Jason-3 data services to the EU Copernicus flagship Earth observation programme.”

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