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The Russian government said ending December it will provide public access to previously classified Earth-sensing data received from domestic and foreign satellites.


“The Earth-sensing data received from civilian domestic and foreign satellites are no longer considered state secrets and it will be open to public access in line with the Russian legislation,” the government said in a statement posted on its legal database portal.

The draft of the regulation was published earlier this year, in August.

At that time, the explanatory note to the document said the declassification of Earth-sensing satellite data would greatly expand the possibilities of its use in the interests OF Russian economy and business, as well as improve the quality of life for Russian citizens.

According to the note, it would also create growth prospects for the Russian geospatial intelligence services market.

Source Sputnik International

Satellite Industry Plans For Africa’s Future… Improving The Quality Of Life To Remotest Regions

The satellite industry is destined to become an essential element in bolstering Africa’s future economic growth and the social wellbeing of its inhabitants in areas such as education, improved living standards, food security, and health.

New technologies and continual miniaturization in the field of satellite engineering have made satellites progressively more capable of putting even the remotest African village in direct contact with quality information. Improved government services, the management of natural resources, the monitoring of natural disasters, ecological threats and the status of infrastructure are all now possible irrespective of location thanks to satellites.

According to Dr. Sias Mostert CEO of the South African Space Commercial Services Aerospace Group (SCS AG), this new technology applied with lightweight small Earth observation satellites, is effective for the management of natural resources, in particular agriculture in addition to the monitoring of natural threats such as floods, severe storms and large fires. Physical infrastructure such as roads, railways, airports, bridges, pipelines, dams, and antennas, which are exposed to inclement weather and deterioration, can also be accurately monitored to detect minute changes and institute preventative action. This all combines to enable authorities to make informed decisions not only to improve living conditions and social wellbeing but to save lives as well.

“The backbone of this new advanced remote sensing system is based on two technological developments. The first is an optical hyperspectral sensor that is able to break up images into many different spectral bands to unveil more details about the Earth’s surface. The second solution is a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging sensor an advanced remote sensing system which can provide continuous updates irrespective of whether it is day or night, and independent of weather and cloud obscuration. Ultimately it can be used for detecting changes in the surface of the earth of only a few millimeters over time,” says Dr. Mostert.

“Monitoring from space has many practical uses such as sensing the health of agriculture crops for food security, forest canopies to prevent diseases, soils and vegetation for restoration after mining operations, aquatic ecosystems for future water resource, mapping of natural vegetation, shoreline changes, the effect of climate change and monitoring for the onset of natural disasters,” he says.

Phoenix Team-Some members of the South African Phoenix-20 HS micro-satellite design team with an artist’s impression of the product. From left are Duncan Stanton project manager, Hendrik Burger chief technical officer, and Marcello Bartolini systems engineer.

At the same time, there are also moves afoot by big players in the satellite industry such as South African born billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX is set to challenge the cable-dependent broadband industry. SpaceX plans to launch a constellation of up to 700 satellites which will deliver Internet services anywhere on Earth without the use of cables.

All the while, companies such as Google, Facebook and Outernet are also hard at work making the delivery of information through the Internet possible in even the remotest regions on Earth. A solar powered antenna providing Wi-Fi to all the inhabitants of a remote African village is no longer just a dream.

The Somerset West-based SCS Aerospace Group is South Africa’s leading private small satellite contractor, with business interests and ongoing contracts in numerous countries around the world. They recently launched a new product the Phoenix 20-Hyperspectral Satellite, which employs the hyperspectral remote sensing system.

The group operates in partnership with a number of companies specializing in various fields of satellite applications and satellite engineering. The applications include Geo-Risk Management, Geo Information Systems, and Social Development.

Source

NASA in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is offering more than $35,000 in prizes to citizen scientists for ideas that make use of climate data to address vulnerabilities faced by the United States in coping with climate change.

The Climate Resilience Data Challenge, conducted through the NASA Tournament Lab, a partnership with Harvard University hosted on Appirio/Topcoder, kicks off Monday, Dec 15 and runs through March 2015.

The challenge supports the efforts of the White House Climate Data Initiative, a broad effort to leverage the federal government’s extensive, freely available climate-relevant data resources to spur innovation and private-sector entrepreneurship in order to advance awareness of and preparedness for the impacts of climate change. The challenge was announced by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Dec. 9.

According to the recent National Climate Assessment produced by more than 300 experts across government and academia, the United States faces a number of current and future challenges as the result of climate change.

Vulnerabilities include coastal flooding and weather-related hazards that threaten lives and property, increased disruptions to agriculture, prolonged drought that adversely affects food security and water availability, and ocean acidification capable of damaging ecosystems and biodiversity. The challenge seeks to unlock the potential of climate data to address these and other climate risks.

“Federal agencies, such as NASA and the USGS, traditionally focus on developing world-class science data to support scientific research, but the rapid growth in the innovation community presents new opportunities to encourage wider usage and application of science data to benefit society,” said Kevin Murphy, NASA program executive for Earth Science Data Systems in Washington. “We need tools that utilize federal data to help our local communities improve climate resilience, protect our ecosystems, and prepare for the effects of climate change.”

“Government science follows the strictest professional protocols because scientific objectivity is what the American people expect from us,” said Virginia Burkett, acting USGS associate director for Climate Change and Land Use. “That systematic approach is fundamental to our mission. With this challenge, however, we are intentionally looking outside the box for transformational ways to apply the data that we have already carefully assembled for the benefit of communities across the nation.”

The challenge begins with an ideation stage for data-driven application pitches, followed by storyboarding and, finally, prototyping of concepts with the greatest potential.

The ideation stage challenges competitors to imagine new applications of climate data to address climate vulnerabilities. This stage is divided into three competitive classes based on data sources: NASA data, federal data from agencies such as the USGS, and any open data. The storyboarding stage allows competitors to conceptualize and design the best ideas, followed by the prototyping stage, which carry the best ideas into implementation.

The Climate Resilience Data Challenge is managed by NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation at NASA Headquarters, Washington. The center was established in coordination with the Office of Science and Technology Policy to advance open innovation efforts for climate-related science and extend that expertise to other federal agencies.

Source

(Nov 2014) Asean countries should team up and share information gathered from satellite imagery for better and more efficient development in the field of information science infrastructure, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) board said recently.

Board member Vichit Satharanond pointed out that each country in the region had invested in satellite imagery, but the nations had never worked together in the field.

He was speaking at a recent seminar on Geo-Informatics and Space Technology for better Asean cooperation as part of the annual “Geoinfotech 2014” exhibition. The event is aimed at promoting research in information technology and space in the public and private sectors in Thailand.

For instance, he said, using shared satellite images for mapping would help Asean countries be better prepared for disasters because the region shares a similar geography that has been made fragile by climate change.

“These maps can also be used in the tourism industry,” he pointed out.

Vichit said regional countries could turn to Asean+3 countries in terms of science and information development, adding that China – considered one of the most influential countries in the region – should be encouraged to invest in the field and provide training to other countries.

Somchai Tiamboonpresert, deputy permanent secretary of the Science and Technology Ministry, also called on the government to allocate more funds for the development of Thailand’s science and information sector.

At present, only 0.37 per cent of the national budget is earmarked for research and development, but this should rise to 1 per cent or at least Bt100 billion per year, “as this will encourage better research and attract the younger generation to work in this field”, he said.

He also explained that continuity of government policy in relation to this sector had been affected due to the unsteady political situation.

Speaker Somkiet Ornwimon, president of the TV production house Thai Witat, agreed that Thailand should invest more in the fields of science and technology.

At the seminar, he cited a study conducted by Euroconsult, a leading consulting firm that specialises in space markets including satellite communications. The study showed that Vietnam had invested US$93 million (Bt3 billion) on the study of astronomy – the highest in the region – while Laos invested $50 million, Indonesia $38 million and Thailand came in fourth at $20 million.

Somchet Thinaphong, chairman of GISTDA’s board of directors, said geo-informatics and space technology would also have a hand in boosting Thailand’s transportation and agriculture sectors.

Geo-informatics develops and uses information science to address the problems of geography, geo-sciences and related branches of engineering.

“Using this technology in transportation will help improve geo-informatics-based mapping system in the country using satellite imagery. It will also provide better guidance in agriculture planning, for instance, it can be used to pinpoint areas that need fertiliser,” he said.

Source

China sent the Yaogan-25 remote sensing satellite into a scheduled orbit at 3:33 a.m. on Thursday 11 Dec from the Jiuquan satellite launch center.

The Yaogan-25 was carried by a Long March-4C rocket. It was the 201st mission for the Long March rocket technology.

Yaogan satellites are mainly used for scientific experiments, natural resource surveys, crop yield estimates and disaster relief.

China launched the first satellite in the “Yaogan” series, Yaogan-1, in 2006.

Xinhua

The 82nd meeting of the EUMETSAT Council took place in Darmstadt, Germany,on 26 November.

The meeting achieved progress in the approval process for the EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS-SG) programme: 86.86 % of the financial envelope of the programme is now covered by committed contributions from Member States.

Expecting that all Member States will have completed their national approval process by June 2015 at the latest, the Council authorised the Director-General, Alain Ratier, to start the programme activities when 95% of the financial envelope is secured.

The Council also opened the Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) Optional Programme for subscription after agreeing the Programme Proposal and other documents establishing the legal framework for that programme.

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Five new NASA airborne field campaigns will take to the skies starting in 2015 to investigate how long-range air pollution, warming ocean waters, and fires in Africa affect our climate.

These studies into several incompletely understood Earth system processes were competitively-selected as part of NASA’s Earth Venture-class projects. Each project is funded at a total cost of no more than $30 million over five years. This funding includes initial development, field campaigns and analysis of data.

This is NASA’s second series of Earth Venture suborbital investigations — regularly solicited, quick-turnaround projects recommended by the National Research Council in 2007. The first series of five projects was selected in 2010.

“These new investigations address a variety of key scientific questions critical to advancing our understanding of how Earth works,” said Jack Kaye, associate director for research in NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington. “These innovative airborne experiments will let us probe inside processes and locations in unprecedented detail that complements what we can do with our fleet of Earth-observing satellites.”

The five selected Earth Venture investigations are:

Atmospheric chemistry and air pollution – Steven Wofsy of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will lead the Atmospheric Tomography project to study the impact of human-produced air pollution on certain greenhouse gases. Airborne instruments will look at how atmospheric chemistry is transformed by various air pollutants and at the impact on methane and ozone which affect climate. Flights aboard NASA’s DC-8 will originate from the Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, fly north to the western Arctic, south to the South Pacific, east to the Atlantic, north to Greenland, and return to California across central North America.

Ecosystem changes in a warming ocean – Michael Behrenfeld of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, will lead the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study, which seeks to improve predictions of how ocean ecosystems would change with ocean warming. The mission will study the annual life cycle of phytoplankton and the impact small airborne particles derived from marine organisms have on climate in the North Atlantic. The large annual phytoplankton bloom in this region may influence the Earth’s energy budget. Research flights by NASA’s C-130 aircraft from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, will be coordinated with a University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) research vessel. UNOLS, located at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography in Narragansett, Rhode Island, is an organization of 62 academic institutions and national laboratories involved in oceanographic research.

Greenhouse gas sources – Kenneth Davis of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, will lead the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport-America project to quantify the sources of regional carbon dioxide, methane and other gases, and document how weather systems transport these gases in the atmosphere. The research goal is to improve identification and predictions of carbon dioxide and methane sources and sinks using spaceborne, airborne and ground-based data over the eastern United States. Research flights will use NASA’s C-130 from Wallops and the UC-12 from Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

African fires and Atlantic clouds – Jens Redemann of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, will lead the Observations of Aerosols above Clouds and their Interactions project to probe how smoke particles from massive biomass burning in Africa influences cloud cover over the Atlantic. Particles from this seasonal burning that are lofted into the mid-troposphere and transported westward over the southeast Atlantic interact with permanent stratocumulus “climate radiators,” which are critical to the regional and global climate system. NASA aircraft, including a Wallops P-3 and an Armstrong ER-2, will be used to conduct the investigation flying out of Walvis Bay, Namibia.

Melting Greenland glaciers – Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will lead the Oceans Melting Greenland mission to investigate the role of warmer saltier Atlantic subsurface waters in Greenland glacier melting. The study will help pave the way for improved estimates of future sea level rise by observing changes in glacier melting where ice contacts seawater. Measurements of the ocean bottom as well as seawater properties around Greenland will be taken from ships and the air using several aircraft including a NASA S-3 from Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and Gulfstream III from Armstrong.

Seven NASA centers, 25 educational institutions, three U.S. government agencies and two industry partners are involved in these Earth Venture projects. The five investigations were selected from 33 proposals.

Earth Venture investigations are part of NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder program managed at Langley for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The missions in this program provide an innovative approach to address Earth science research with periodic windows of opportunity to accommodate new scientific priorities.

NASA monitors Earth’s vital signs from land, sea, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and surface-based observation campaigns. With this information and computer analysis tools, NASA studies Earth’s interconnected systems to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

For more information about NASA’s Earth science activities, visit

SOURCE NASA

Data forms a key pillar in 21st century sources of growth. The confluence of several trends, including the increasing migration of socio-economic activities to the Internet and the decline in the cost of data collection, storage and processing, are leading to the generation and use of huge volumes of data – commonly referred to as “big data”.

These large data sets are becoming a core asset in the economy, fostering new industries, processes and products and creating significant competitive advantages.

For instance:

  • In business, data exploitation promises to create value in a variety of operations, from the optimisation of value chains in global manufacturing and services more efficient use of labour and tailored customer relationships.
  • The adoption of ‘smart-grid’ technologies is generating large volumes of data on energy and resource consumption patterns that can be exploited to improve energy and resource efficiency.
  • The public sector is also an important data user but also a key source of data. Greater access to and more effective use of public-sector information (PSI), as called for by the 2008 OECD Council Recommendation on PSI, can generate benefits across the economy.

Greater access and use of data creates a wide array of policy issues, such as privacy and consumer protection, open data access, skills and employment, and measurement to name a few.

Objectives

The OECD is undertaking extensive analysis on the role of data in promoting innovation, growth and well-being within its multi-disciplinary project on New Sources of Growth: Knowledge-Based Capital (KBC). The objectives of the project are:

  • Improve the evidence base on the role of data for promoting growth and well-being, and
  • Provide policy guidance on how to maximize the benefits of the data-driven economy, while mitigating the associated risks.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Patricia Haslach, and U.S. Ambassador to the African Union (AU) Reuben Brigety, met this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss resources available to help mitigate the impacts in Africa of global climate change.

On Monday, Bolden delivered high-resolution topographical data for the African continent to the technical committee of the Governing Council of the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), which hosts the SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa Hub. SERVIR is a joint venture between NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development that provides satellite-based Earth observation data and science applications to help developing nations. The data, collected by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, was recently released as part of President Barack Obama’s climate action plan, announced during the United Nations Climate Summit in September.

“It is vital that NASA and African nations continue to explore mutual areas of cooperation,” Bolden said. “I look forward to our ongoing collaboration and to making a difference on real world problems with our satellites in space and crucial ground observations. Working together, we can improve life for all of our people.”

While in Addis Ababa, Bolden and Brigety met with Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, the AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, and Martial De-Paul Ikounga, the AU Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, to discuss the potential for cooperation between NASA and the AU on education, disaster mitigation and applications for NASA’s Earth science research.

“The United States has been partnering with the African Union on topics as diverse as security, governance and agriculture,” Brigety said. “Administrator Bolden’s visit is another concrete example demonstrating that the United States is the natural partner for Africa and for the African Union.”

Administrator Bolden and Ambassador Haslach met with Demitu Hambisa, the Ethiopian Minister of Science and Technology to discuss applications for NASA’s Earth science research. Administrator Bolden also met with leaders at the Entoto Observatory and Research Center, an observatory and education center, and spoke with students at the International Community School Tikur Anbessa High School, and Addis Ababa Institute of Technology.

“We are excited Administrator Bolden visited Addis Ababa this week and that NASA is engaging with the government of Ethiopia and the African Union on our shared objectives,” Haslach said. “While here in Addis Ababa, Administrator Bolden participated in a range of outreach activities and engaged Ethiopian policymakers and technical experts on Ethiopia’s space program, which included a visit to the new observatory on Entoto Mountain and engagement with young Ethiopians interested in space exploration and how it can help us on Earth.”

SOURCE NASA

(10 November 2014) With the first Copernicus satellite now operational, ESA and the DLR German Aerospace Center have signed an arrangement on managing and accessing Sentinel data.

The Sentinel family of satellites is being developed to meet the operational needs of Europe’s environment monitoring programme, Copernicus. The first in the fleet, Sentinel-1A, was launched in April and began its operational life a month ago.

The data provided by the Earth-observing missions are freely accessible for Copernicus Services, as well as to scientific and other users.

At an event held last week at the ESA Headquarters in Paris, France, ESA and Germany signed an Understanding for the Sentinel Collaborative Ground Segment Cooperation, which aims to facilitate Sentinel data exploitation in the country.

Signing on Germany’s behalf was Gerd Gruppe, a member of the DLR’s Executive Board.

Under the agreement, DLR will coordinate ground segment activities in Germany – such as hosting, distributing, ensuring access and archiving Sentinel data – and act as an interface between ESA and national initiatives. DLR also plans to cooperate with different European partners and institutions.

“Only when data actually reach users can the Copernicus benefits be realised – in the right place, in the right format and at the right moment,” said Dr Gruppe. “This understanding helps achieve this for users in Germany.”

As coordinator of the Copernicus ‘space component’, ESA supports national initiatives by establishing direct and efficient access to Sentinel data, providing technical advice on the setting up of data acquisition and dissemination, as well as making data processing and archiving software available to national initiatives.

“The collaborative ground segments will improve the access of users in Germany to Copernicus data very much. ESA is supporting its Member States to improve the access via a standard interface,” said Volker Liebig, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes and co-signatory of the Understanding.

Germany is the fourth Participating State to sign the agreement after Greece, Norway and Italy.

(source: ESA)