Skip to content

(30 September 2015) MDA’s Information Systems group has released two new Radarsat-2 imaging modes for commercial use.

These modes are designed specifically for maritime monitoring and will enhance the capabilities of the Radarsat-2 satellite:

The Ship Detection mode. A mode that provides superior ship detection capability for ships 25 meters in length or greater, over areas as large as 450 kilometers x 500 kilometers in a single Radarsat-2 scene. The Ship Detection mode is ideal for applications such as monitoring illegal fishing and sovereignty protection.

The Ocean Surveillance mode. A mode that provides maritime monitoring capabilities for a variety of maritime applications. The Ocean Surveillance mode can image areas as large as 530 kilometers x 500 kilometers in a single scene. This mode also delivers ship detection capability, but includes monitoring of other ocean features such as detecting oil on water, ice and wind analysis and wake detection.

The Radarsat-2 satellite has global high-resolution surveillance capabilities that include a large collection capacity and high accuracy. The satellite acquires data regardless of light or weather conditions, provides frequent re-visit imaging options, and is supported by ground receiving stations that provide near real-time information delivery services. This versatility makes Radarsat-2 a reliable source of information in multi-faceted intelligence surveillance and monitoring programs.

(source: MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates)

Dimitri Papadakis and Lefteris Mamais are two entrepreneurs who launched their start-up consulting firm Evenflow in January of this year, with an eye on turning the promise of space technology into benefits of decision-makers, businesses and the wider public. The co-founders discuss the opportunities that new, free and open data and services, such as those provided by the EU flagship programmes Copernicus and Galileo, offer to the geospatial industry, and the challenges linked to their exploitation.

The breadth, volume and impact of geospatial applications is continuously growing. Examples of new and innovative applications abound, from monitoring the ground deformation caused by earthquakes (e.g. Chile and Nepal) and using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to map diamond mines in Africa to exploiting the geo-location capabilities of mobile devices within citizen observatory projects. Despite the troubling global economic climate, the growth and economic output of the geospatial sector in recent years has been remarkable; it generates between $150 and $270 Bn annually, and recent studies project an annual growth of 8-10% for the global market.

There is a host of good reasons behind this growth: the massive explosion in global smartphone sales (1 Bn in 2013) driven largely by the development of successful location-based apps; the emergence of new Earth Observation business models backed by risk capital (e.g. Skybox, Planet Labs, Urthecast); the development of sophisticated cloud-based platforms for intensive data processing (e.g. CloudEO); significant public investment in the development of EO and GNSS-based downstream services; and, of course, the increasing availability of new, free and open data sources.

The advent of Copernicus’ free, full and open data policy, the reality of the multi-GNSS era, and the rapid uptake of UAV- or crowd-sourced data, create ample opportunities for the development of innovative applications while challenging the resourcefulness of entrepreneurs and service providers. These new and enhanced data sources, forming part of a “data revolution”, promise to address a range of societal challenges and create economic benefits across a number of domains, via their exploitation in the form of value-adding “downstream” services. Cost-effective road transport, increased agricultural yields, efficient emergency management services and robust climate change monitoring are just a few examples of the benefit areas which such downstream services support.

The need for informed, sound and often real-time decision-making is driving the improvement of existing applications and the development of new ones, and hence, the growth and evolution of the geospatial sector. Citizens, business managers and policy makers alike stand to benefit and profit from the combination of multiple new, free and open sources of geospatial data in tailored downstream applications and services.

Per aspera…

In fulfilling this need, a number of challenges need to be overcome. Managing, ensuring the interoperability of, and extracting value from multiple sources of data calls for new tools and methodologies. A storm of activity is now brewing around the theme of “Big Data for Space”, both within public institutions and in the private sector.

The development of new and innovative geospatial solutions requires the systematic identification of end-user requirements, whilst new user communities also need to be identified and made aware of the potential benefits to their industries or activities. Only in the last few years, for example, has the insurance industry started to systematically use Earth Observation data for its risk and damage assessment functions.

Moreover, the exploitation of the opportunities presented by these solutions requires knowledge of potential new markets, and the development of effective commercialisation strategies. This will be further supported in the long term by the availability of a highly-skilled workforce equipped not only to carry out the relevant science and technology aspects but also effectively link them to societal and business needs1.

…ad astra

Inspired by the complexity and intrinsically synergetic nature of the geospatial sector (across disciplines, skills and nations), and driven to address the above challenges, Evenflow was founded in January 2015. Our aspiration to support the broader uptake of geospatial solutions builds on our combined experience of the space sector in both institutional and commercial settings, and our extensive engagement with key stakeholder groups, i.e. academia and industry, as part of R&D projects or in the context of consulting activities.

Evenflow strives to communicate the various aspects of geospatial solutions to the respective user communities, raise their awareness vis-à-vis the corresponding business opportunities, engage them together with industrial or academic stakeholders in the implementation of novel collaborative R&D projects and, finally, support the intelligent exploitation of those projects’ results.

A concrete case which exemplifies the challenging yet highly inspiring nature of our work as young professionals in the geospatial sector is a Horizon 2020 project which Evenflow recently won. The APOLLO project will use free and open data from the Copernicus Sentinels 1 and 2 (complemented with other sources) to provide small farmers with a suite of services, including irrigation scheduling, crop growth monitoring and crop yield estimation. Evenflow is leading the communication and exploitation activities which will contribute towards tapping the reservoir of future potential users, and enable the creation of a sustainable commercial downstream service. In summary, the continuous growth of geospatial services and their increasing tangible impact on a wide range of societal needs comes with its own challenges: the complex fusion of technological aspects, business considerations and end-user requirements, and the development of sustainable strategies for exploitation, communication and uptake amongst the relevant communities. As the data revolution gathers pace, the doors are wide open for new and innovative geospatial services to overcome these challenges, and head for the stars: Per Aspera, Ad Astra.

Source

Copernicus Land Monitoring Service releases a new product: We’re pleased to announce a new product in our portfolio, a global Water Bodies detection product (known as Version 2). The product is provided in Near Real Time and is a backprocessed since January 2014 onwards, so nearly 2 years of data are available.

The product contains a water bodies (WB) detection layer (at 1km spatial resolution) and a quality information (QUAL) layer, providing information on the occurence of the detected bodies over time. The PROBA-V derived Water Bodies V2 product is provided at global scale in demonstration mode. The quality assessment report shows a good accuracy on omission errors (<10% for pixels with a Water Surface Ration larger than 95%) and an acceptable commission accuracy (~20%) across the globe.

More information can be found at http://land.copernicus.eu/global/products/wb.

The Water Bodies V2 product is currently being tuned to work on the SPOT-VGT dataset to provide a full time-series from 1998 onwards in 2016.

Source

22 September 2015. Using satellites to predict plant and crop diseases is just one of the fresh ideas produced over a week-long camp dedicated to creating mobile apps using Earth observation data.

Twenty-three developers from nine countries, representing Austria, Britain, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain, gathered last week at ESA’s ESRIN centre in Italy, for the fourth annual Space App Camp.

Their aim was to bring Earth observation data – particularly from the European Copernicus programme – to the everyday user through smartphones.

Each of the teams had a week to create an app from one of five areas: agriculture, emergency and rescue management, environmental protection, marine environments and maritime transportation, or lifestyle and tourism

The teams presented their apps to a panel of judges from ESA and partner companies, who ranked the projects based on innovation, relevance for Copernicus, market and business value, feasibility of the concept and overall presentation.

Thomas Beer, ESA’s Copernicus Policy Coordinator, said: “This year’s participants have been particularly skilled and ambitious. It was a pleasure to see them working hard and interacting with our coaches, helping them to create a perfect prototype app. I hope that each of the six groups will apply for ESA business incubator support.”

The GAIA App won the challenge by proposing the use of satellite data for agriculture, matching areas of interest with possible diseases. This would allow farmers to benefit from early warnings, for evaluating crops at risk. It could also provide tips on how to respond to possible dangerous situations in their fields.

With four participants representing Germany, Greece, Austria and Spain, the winners had the youngest member ever on their team. Germany’s Pascal Weinberger is only 18 years old and recently finished secondary school, while the other three winners, John Zachilas, Lukas Böhler and Pablo Garcia-Nieto Rodriguez, are all university students in computer science and electrical engineering.

John Zachilas from Greece stated: “It was great and extremely interesting to meet such people, since not many of my friends in Greece are into such things.”

Each member of the winning team was presented with a cash prize of €625. All teams were encouraged to apply to one of ESA’s 19 Business Incubation Centres to develop their ideas further.

Responsible for programme planning and coordination of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes, Josef Aschbacher said: “Participants this year have shown impressive app concepts using the newly available Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data

“These satellites, due to the free and open data policy, will increasingly become a widely available information source to inform European citizens about the state of our planet.

“The App Camp participants have very impressively shown how this can work in practice.”

Other apps developed during the week included the Rocket Tourist App, which uses Earth observation and crowdsourced data to locate the best spots for activities. The gQUERY App is an Earth observation-based geolocation search engine for decision-makers and the public. PEBLY is an easy-to-use app for tourists, which provides information on typical holiday activities such as sunbathing, surfing, snorkelling and swimming. SATVR enables dedicated industries such as construction companies and the mining industry to visualise ground deformation by combining Earth observation data and augmented reality. BIOME simplifies the process of research projects for scientists and governments by gathering in situ data and validating EO data in a better way.

Source

According to a JRC study published on 24 September, projections under a “high-end“ climate scenario show that river floods in Europe could directly affect more than half a million people a year by 2050 and nearly one million by 2080, as compared to about 200 thousand today. Related annual damages could climb from the current 5.3 billion EUR to up to 40 billion EUR in 2050 and reach 100 billion EUR by 2080, due to the combined effect of climatic change and socio-economic growth.

The study assesses the future flood risk in Europe under high levels of global warming, combining projections of extreme streamflow based on EURO-CORDEX RCP8.5 climate scenarios with recent advances in European flood hazard mapping. Under these high-end climate scenarios, estimates of population affected and direct flood damages indicate that in 2080 the socio-economic impact of river floods in Europe could more than triple, i.e. rise by an average 220% due to climate change alone.

An earlier JRC study published in May 2015, showed a substantial increase in the future flood hazard under high end scenarios, due to a pronounced increase in the frequency of extreme river flooding as opposed to relatively smaller changes in the flood magnitude. In Europe, the flood peaks that currently strike less than once a century are projected to double in frequency within the next few decades. Such flood peaks are mostly above the average protection level of European rivers and may have devastating impacts on our society if adaptation measures are not implemented in due time. The climate projections of the study also indicate a 30% reduction in the mean annual precipitation in southern European countries, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, Greece and southern Italy. However extreme daily rainfall accumulations are likely to increase across Europe, increasing the need for flood mitigation plans and efficient management of water resources.

Background

EURO-CORDEX is a new generation of downscaled climate projections that is used for climate change impact studies in Europe. The climate RCP8.5 scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumes the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and foresees a global temperature rise exceeding 4⁰C before the end of the century. RCP8.5 assumes high population, slow income growth, modest technological innovation and energy intensity improvements leading to high energy demand, without change in climate policies.

Source

This fall, birds migrating south from the Arctic will find 7,000 acres of new, temporary wetland habitat for their stopovers in California. The wetlands – rice fields shallowly flooded for a couple weeks after the harvest – are courtesy of a project that combines citizen science, conservation groups and imagery from Landsat satellites, a joint NASA and U.S.

The BirdReturns program, created by The Nature Conservancy, is an effort to provide “pop-up habitats” for some of the millions of shorebirds, such as sandpipers and plovers, that migrate each year from their summer breeding grounds in Alaska and Canada to their winter habitats in California, Mexico, Central and South America. The route takes the birds along what’s called the Pacific Flyway, where they seek out the increasingly rare wetlands teeming with tasty insects to fuel their long-distance flights.

The problem – more than 90 percent of the natural wetlands in the Central Valley of California have been lost to development, agriculture and other land use changes, said Mark Reynolds, lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy California Migratory Bird Program. The organization operates the BirdReturns program, with partners including Point Blue Conservation Science, Audubon California and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

“The challenge is how do you help wildlife that move around and create habitat in places that may only be important for a few weeks or a few months out of the year?” Reynolds said. “We’d long been searching for spatial data that could help us.”

Pop-up habitat

The solution involves big data, binoculars and rice paddies. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program collects on-the-ground observations, including species and date spotted, from bird watchers nationwide. With a recent NASA grant to Cornell, scientists created computer models to analyze that information and combine it with satellite remote sensing imagery from Landsat and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. With these models, they could identify areas in the Central Valley where birds flocked to during the spring and fall migrations, as well as estimate the number of birds making the journey.

“The challenge then was to better understand the status of the habitat, where the models were predicting we should have birds,” Reynolds said. Some of his colleagues had been using Landsat images to look at where – and when – there was standing water, to assist with surveys of shorebirds.

Matthew Reiter, a quantitative ecologist with the conservation science nonprofit Point Blue, based in Petaluma, California, worked on developing models that can classify habitats based on Landsat imagery. For the BirdReturns project, the team analyzed 1,500 Landsat scenes between 2000 and 2011, and then additional images from Landsat 8 after its 2013 launch. For each area not blocked by clouds, they classified whether there was surface water.

“We can show patterns of how there’s changing habitat availability through the year, and that the timing may vary year to year,” Reiter said.

Matching the location and timing of surface water from Landsat with the route and timing of migrating shorebirds from eBird, the BirdReturns program looks for those key sites where extra water would make a difference for the birds, which forage for food in the wetland areas.

That’s where farmers come in. Rice farmers in California’s Central Valley flood their fields post-harvest, to soften the stubble and make it easier to clear for the next year. Using a reverse-auction, the farmers submit bids to The Nature Conservancy, stating how much money per acre it would take for them to shallowly flood their fields for a few weeks to create these pop-up wetland habitats. The BirdReturns team examines the bids, compares them to the priority habitats, and then makes selections, paying farmers to flood fields for specific two-week periods.

This fall, 30 farmers applied water on approximately 7,000 acres of rice fields. It’s the fourth round of auctions; about 30,000 acres of cumulative habitat was created earlier through auctions in Spring 2014, Fall 2014 and Spring 2015. In Spring 2014, the group surveyed the participating fields, as well as control fields where the water wasn’t left on. They found that more than 180,000 birds of over 50 different species used the 10,000 acres of pop-up wetlands – 30 times more than counted on the dry fields.

“It’s been a pretty astonishing success,” Reynolds said. “Farmers participated, and we were able to put habitat out there at a fraction of the cost to purchase that land or put an easement on it.”

Mapping water

With an ongoing drought in California, which is drying up some of the state’s wildlife refuges, it’s even more valuable to have a program like this, he said. If farmers have the water to create the habitat, it could compensate for dry areas elsewhere along the route.

With Landsat’s free archive of decades of land cover information, the mission has often been used for habitat and biodiversity studies, said Jeff Masek, project scientist for the upcoming Landsat 9 mission. With the currently in orbit Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 capturing more images per day than previous satellites, scientists have more information to draw on to study the timing of the ephemeral lakes, rivers and wetlands that only appear certain times of year.

“There’s been more and more work with the water mapping,” Masek said. “You can start to do much more detailed studies of the seasonality of water – when these lakes fill in, and when they dry up.”

The freely available satellite imagery from Landsat, and other satellite instruments such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, are invaluable data resources to see how birds and other animals are affected by landscape changes, Reiter said.

“With applied conservation programs, we’re using that imagery to say here are the areas that we can prioritize for conservation management, and here are areas that maybe we can let go,” he said. “It’s a very powerful tool for getting conservation to happen.”

Source

The United Nations defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Previous dialogues on sustainability have more or less focused on climate change and environmental issues, but the new paradigm of sustainability, as negotiated over the last three years for this summit. includes all efforts towards an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and the planet. There is a significant departure from the previous framework to now include a “harmonising” of three elements: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. “Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development,” the UN has said.

What are the Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted today?

The 193 Member States of the United Nations, following negotiations that lasted from July 2012 till last month, have agreed upon the text of a new document entitled, “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. This agenda contains 17 goals and 169 targets. These will be officially adopted on Friday at the start of the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York. The goals are to be achieved by all member countries within the next fifteen years, thereby giving it the moniker of ‘Agenda for 2030’.

But what are the goals exactly?

End poverty in all forms; end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture; ensure inclusive and equitable quality education; achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all; promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment; build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation; reduce inequality within and among countries; make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable; ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns; take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources; protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss; promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

Why now?

This agenda builds on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were adopted in 2000 and were to be achieved by 2015. With 2015 drawing to a close, it’s time for a new set of goals. Also, at the Rio+20 meet in 2012 to mark 20 years of the Rio Environment Summit, world leaders had to concede that decades of environmental activism had not achieved the set targets, leading to a consensus that a new sustainability document was in order for the world to commit itself to. From the Rio+20 conference emerged a report, ‘The Future We Want’, in which were enshrined the principles and markers based on which the negotiations proceeded for the next three years.

Do we need another set of global goals?

The document is being seen as a political document, not a technical one. Criticism that there are too many — 17 goals with 169 targets makes it a complex task to monitor, ensure reporting and hold governments accountable, but the Rio+20 consensus was for a comprehensive document, and this is comprehensive. But while the jury remains out on whether these are achievable and realistic, whether the lack of clarity on monitoring and accountability makes it an exercise in spelling out truisms and platitudes, the fact that this is a political undertaking is important. As undertakings that civil society and citizens can hold leaders accountable for, the goals are significant. Also, given that this is the first time that ALL nations adopt the same set of goals, regardless of their relative position on the development continuum, given that emerging economies in the developing world will play significant roles as donors in their own right even as the developing world negotiates with the developed world to keep its commitments on Official Development Assistance and other forms of financial structural reform, the goals are more than just 17 desirables.

Who foots the bill for the implementation of the agenda?

The fine print on how developed countries are to contribute vis-a-vis developing countries is still being finalised, though the Indian contingent of negotiators is among those G77 countries and China who insisted upon a Means of Implementation section in the document, the latter squarely laying responsibilities upon the developed world to fulfil its commitments on assistance and on transfer of technology to developing countries. For the first time, the role of the private sector and its participation is also being chalked in from the very start of the process. According to UN officials, a “framework of a revitalized global partnership for sustainable development” including the policies and actions arrived at in the Addis Ababa Conference on Financing for Development held in July this year will define the precise nature of resource mobilisation for implementing the goals.

How enthusiastic is civil society, given that it has been part of the consultative provcess of drafting the SDGs?

Indian NGOs say they harbour a healthy skepticism of the goals themselves being achieved, especially in the absence of clearly defined monitoring processes and clarity on resource mobilisation — these are still being negotiated. But their participation as stakeholders means that they continue to engage with the process.

If it’s adopted today, what next?

The 17 SDGs and 169 targets of the new agenda will be monitored and reviewed using a set of global indicators. This framework of indicators is still to be developed and is currently being reviewed by an Inter Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators. The UN Statistical Commission will finalise these markers or indicators, which will naturally demand capacity-building on data collection in countries, by March 2016. Subsequently, the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly will adopt these indicators. Chief statisticians from Member States are working on the identification of the targets with the aim to have 2 indicators for each target. Governments will also develop their own national indicators to assist in monitoring progress made on the goals and targets. The follow–up and review process will be undertaken on an annual basis by the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development through a SDG Progress Report to be prepared by the Secretary–General.

See more at

Mme Wu Shuang, CEO & President of 21AT, said: “I am very glad that the three satellites are in orbit and have started communication with the ground station. It is the first step of our long march and we are looking forward to the commencement of our BJII data services following the completion of the commissioning of the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation.”

The Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Company Ltd (21AT), a commercial Earth observation satellite operator based in Beijing, has bought the imaging capacity of three DMC3/TripleSat satellites that were designed and manufactured by SSTL.

The very high-resolution imager on board the satellites will provide 1 metre ground sampling distance (GSD) in panchromatic mode, and 4 metre GSD in multispectral mode, with a swath width of 23.4km.

The three satellites will be phased 120 degrees apart around the same orbit using their on board propulsion systems within three months after the launch; thus with off-pointing capability, the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation will be able to target anywhere on Earth once per day. In addition, the wide swath width of the satellites provides the best combination of spatial resolution and time resolution – aiming at stimulating operational monitoring applications, such as urban planning and intelligent management, based on changes detected by timely and regular cloud-free, very high-resolution imagery.

About 21AT

Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Co. Ltd. is the first and only EO commercial satellite operator in China. Its headquarters is in Beijing, employs more than 300 employees and has been providing remote sensing applications in China since the launch of its first satellite – Beijing-1 in 2005. Beijing-1 is one of five satellites in DMC that had provided international disaster response through International Charter and Beijing-1 satellite imagery to international customers.

Based on Beijing-1 success, 21AT has acquired the new capability of three 1m satellites in a constellation for BJII service. In orbit commission is expected to be completed three months after the launch. 21AT will start the operational worldwide satellite data services from the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation following the completion of the commission. 21AT will create new applications for customers and business opportunities for worldwide partners through its operational monitoring services powered by DMC3/TripleSat Constellation.

About SSTL

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) is the world’s leading small satellite company, delivering operational space missions for a range of applications including Earth observation, science and communications. The Company designs, manufactures and operates high performance satellites and ground systems for a fraction of the price normally associated with space missions, with over 500 staff working on turnkey satellite platforms, space-proven satellite subsystems and optical instruments.

Since 1981, SSTL has built and launched 47 satellites – as well as providing training and development programmes, consultancy services, and mission studies for ESA, NASA , international governments and commercial customers, with an innovative approach that is changing the economics of space. Headquartered in Guildford, UK, SSTL is part of the Airbus Group.
www.sstl.co.uk

India haslaunched five UK satellites, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said Friday. The launch took place at 9:58 p.m. local time (16:28 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The rocket reached orbit 20 minutes after launch.


“The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its thirtieth flight (PSLV-C28), launched three identical DMC3 optical earth observation satellites built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), United Kingdom (UK). The PSLV-C28, in addition to the three DMC3 satellites, also carried two auxiliary satellites from UK,” ISRO said on their website.

The Indian PSLV-C28 rocket in its high-tech XL configuration was launched into a 647 km [402 miles] Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) with three identical DMC3 Earth observation satellites, each of which weighs 447 kg (985 lb).

Apart from the satellites, the rocket also carries an 91-kg (200 lb) optical Earth Observation technology-demonstration micro satellite CBNT-1 and a 7-kg (15lb) experimental nano satellite De-orbitSail, developed by the UK University of Surrey Space Center.

Sino-UK remote sensing satellite constellation launched
Beijing, July 11 (Xinhua) — Three one-meter resolution optical Earth observation satellites were successfully launched early Saturday, according to operator Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Company Ltd. (21AT).

The satellites, which will form the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation, were launched from a site in India and were part of a Sino-UK cooperation project.

The satellites were developed by UK-headquartered Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL), which is the world’s leading small satellite company and part of the Airbus Group.

21AT, a commercial Earth observation satellite operator based in Beijing, provided the imaging capacity of the three satellites and dubbed the Constellation “Beijing-2.”

The Chinese company will manage the satellites’ operation, including observation and control, and data reception and production, as well as related services.

The cooperative contract for the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation was signed in London in 2011 and witnessed by the UK prime minister and Chinese premier.

According to SSTL, the satellites provide the best combination of spatial resolution and time resolution — which stimulates monitoring applications, such as urban planning and intelligent management, at a very high resolution.

Wang Zhiyong, 21AT deputy general manager, said Beijing-2 was a state-approved program and was part of national civilian-use space infrastructure.

China has encouraged private investment to support the launch and operation of remote sensing satellites, and ground application systems for satellite navigation.

Industry observers heralded “Beijing-2” as an important milestone in the involvement of the private sector and the commercialization and international cooperation in the industry.

Source

An agreement between the British Geological Survey (BGS) and aerial mapping company Bluesky is allowing for a range of geological and geohazard map layers to be made available online at www.blueskymapshop.com.

The eight new layers cover a variety of physical features and hazards, including a nationwide map of groundwater flooding as well as ground stability data, geological indicators of flooding and permeability data. Widely used by developers, planners and environmental consultants, for example, this new data complements the national datasets already on offer, including high resolution aerial photography, detailed height models and Ordnance Survey mapping.

Five new map products relating to groundwater are also available at www.blueskymapshop.com. These include the first national hazard dataset for groundwater flooding. Based on geological and hydrogeological information, the 1:50,000 scale digital data can be used to identify areas where geological conditions could enable groundwater flooding to occur, and where groundwater may come close to the ground surface. The Geological Indicators of Flooding shows areas vulnerable to both inland and coastal flooding identified from the geological deposits present. Also available is an Aquifer Designation Map identifying different types of aquifers across England and Wales, and reflecting the importance of aquifers in terms of groundwater as a resource, an Infiltration SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) map, Permeability Data and the WellMaster Hydrogeological Database.

The Geological map layers from BGS that are now available through the Bluesky Mapshop include both the 1:10,000 scale and 1:50, scale DigMapGB digital geological maps of Great Britain. These cover five standard themes: Artifical Ground, Bedrock Geology, Linear Features, Mass Movement Deposits and Superficial Deposits, as well as a composition type. Applications of this data ranges from detailed site assessment through to nationwide studies, dependent on scale.

Internet: www.bluesky-world.com