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June 2014, Geneva, Switzerland – Although UNOSAT is mainly known in UN circles for its long standing support to emergency response operations in humanitarian crises, its experts are adamant that the use of satellite derived geospatial information can be a game-changer in assessing vulnerability and estimating risk. In other words there is more about satellites and disaster risk reduction than what meets the eye.

This is not a recent revelation and UNOSAT has been presenting in various instances over the years arguments in support of applying this versatile technology to vulnerability and territorial planning as a means to increase resilience in the face of natural disasters. The Director of Research at UNITAR recalls: “one of the first successes of UNOSAT was a flood risk reduction programme in Central America integrating training, analysis and technical assistance. We used 3-D modelling to create a usable flood vulnerability map that literally changed the way an entire region dealt with their exposure to flood risk”.

Notwithstanding the high technological value of geospatial information for prevention, the camp of response seems to attract more attention from both the public opinion and the experts. “It is because there is more media coverage and faster funding mechanisms”, recognizes Einar Bjorgo who manages the UNOSAT Programme since 2013. “What we are trying to achieve is establish a good workable link between prevention, response and recovery, throughout which satellite analysis and geo-information maintain value and can be used more easily, rather than tilting the balance in favour of prevention or response, as if these two were antithetic”.

In practice UNOSAT has been putting its experience and skills to work to reach out to the community of national experts working around the full crisis management cycle. “At national level”, says Luca Dell’Oro of UNOSAT, “there is little sense in delving on the difference between prevention and response. Experts want to know their vulnerability, how to measure the risk, how to respond efficiently to threats, how to recover from disaster impacts”. UNOSAT has put together a training mix that, according to beneficiaries, helps them do just that, if nothing else in the limited realm of geographic information. “Geospatial Information Systems don’t hold the answer to everything. But they bring complementary information and a certain ease of access that facilitates coordination and efficiency”, continues Dell’Oro.

Eastern Africa and Southeast Asia are UNOSAT current areas of focus for testing this new approach to using technology for resilience. In the framework of the partnership between UNITAR-UNOSAT and UN-ESCAP, the latest example of successful training by UNOSAT happened in the Philippines in April. The learning course was the ‘Capacity Building Training on Applications of GIS and Geospatial Data Management for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Philippines’, organized by UN-ESCAP and Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD).

The course was customized to meet learning needs of 20 Local Government Operations Officers interested in learning the benefits and limitations of geospatial application for DRR. According to the feedback received after the training, participants have really appreciated case studies and GIS methodologies proposed by UNOSAT for both pre-disaster risk assessment and post-disaster satellite based impact and damage analysis.

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(12 June 2014, Geneva, Switzerland) The UNOG Library Talk of last week in Geneva was dedicated to the launching of the new UNOSAT study on Piracy. This report is the result of five years of research in the area of geospatial information applied to piracy. The research, conducted by UNOSAT experts is the an attempt to look at piracy globally from a geospatial angle, combining mapping and satellite observations to reveal trends and patterns that can only be observed when “looking from above”

The launching took the form of a panel discussion with the participation of the Permanent Representatives to the UN from Somalia and Senegal, the Manager of UNOSAT and the main piracy Researcher from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law. The Panel was moderated by UNITAR’s Director of Research.

Since 2007 UNOSAT has been tracking piracy off the coasts of Somalia using optical very high resolution imagery and radar data from commercial and scientific satellites. At the outset analysts were responding to requests by humanitarian agencies engaged in Somalia and using chartered vessels to transport vital aid supplies. In time the scope of the investigation widened, leading to regular updates by 2009, which became popular with a number of non-UN users including shipping lines, investigators and naval forces. By 2011, UNOSAT had accumulated a large amount of data and information that led to the study presented on 12 June at the Library of the United Nations.

As Einar Bjorgo explained, looking at piracy on a global scale using a geographic reference system reveals aspects of the phenomenon that are less apparent in conventional research on the subject. The UNOSAT study points at a few trends and highlights interesting facts using maps and easy graphics to convey the information. The Ambassador of Somalia, Yusuf Mohammed Ismail, welcomed the research as timely and enlightening and underlined the link between piracy and the complex situation resulting from poverty, insecurity and illegal fishing in Somali waters. On the other side of the continent, West African countries are faced with a rapid UNOG library talkincrease of piracy activities punctuated by increasingly violent episodes, as underlined by the Ambassador of Senegal, Fode’ Seck. Alice Priddy of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law explained how the terminology employed in the media affects the perception of the phenomenon and the importance of the legal definitions and legal frameworks relating to piracy and the high seas in general.

UNOSAT is seeking donor support to sustain its research on piracy in support of humanitarian agencies operating in Africa. The study presented to the diplomatic community on 12 June was funded by Sweden and was the occasion for the management of UNOSAT to attract attention to the funding requirements of the Programme to be able to continue its work in this area.

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The European Space Agency, under its ARTES 20 Integrated Applications Promotions Programme, is challenging innovators to propose new customer-facing applications that combine two or more space assets to provide commercially sustainable services supported by Open Data and Crowdsourcing.

The challenge

These space assets can be Earth Observation, Satellite Navigation, Satellite Communications, and Human Space flight technologies. This challenge will award several contracts in the form of feasibility studies, allowing innovators to collaborate with user communities and stakeholders in the definition of sustainable services, while developing a comprehensive business case. Any contracts awarded shall be fully funded and last up to 6 months. This challenge is open to any company that complies with the rules of the ESA ARTES 20 Programme [1]. SME’s, start-ups and companies that have never worked with ESA before are especially invited to respond.

The challenge is foreseen to be launched at the end of August 2014 and it will remain open for about 4 months in order to allow for innovators to connect to users and stakeholders, as well as attract newcomers to space industry.

Facilitate interactions

This challenge also welcomes the support of Open Data providers, user communities and organisations aimed at promoting Open Data and Crowdsourcing. These entities may contribute to this challenge by: promoting their open datasets and platforms; fostering Open Data format standards, API’s and data exchange protocols; providing access to user communities, in order collaborate in the user requirements definition and connect innovators to early adopters; plus providing visibility of the challenge to its participants.

What happens at the end of the contract? If challenge winners define a compelling business case, ESA can provide further support specifically tailored to each case. Options could include an ESA co-funded demonstration project; access to one of the ESA Business Incubator Centres (BIC) across Europe; business development support by connecting with private investment funding or further partnership opportunities.

For Innovators

Do you have a new idea for a commercial service requiring Open Data where combination with space assets could provide unique added value? Can you create new services that tap into the power of the crowd?

Participate in this challenge and work with ESA to bring your ideas to the market.

For updates on this challenge follow us at @OpenDataARTES20

For the fully detailed Proposal Guide on competitive ITTs click Open Competition

For Open Data Providers

Are you already providing Open Data and do you want to promote it through this challenge?

ESA can provide visibility through this challenge but also through our network of ARTES Applications Ambassador Platforms across Europe.

Very soon, we are going to launch a new resources section in our Community Portal. Please contact your local Ambassador Platform in order to promote your resources in our portal.

For User Communities

Are you already using space-related Open Data but the existing services do not fit your requirements?

This challenge is designed to bring innovators and user communities together, as well as promote Open Data formats, data exchange protocols, API’s and open source platforms for Open Data.

Vision

We expect this challenge to be able to bring together the dynamic Open Data community with the Space industry and define new services and opportunities.

Another expected outcome is to increase the awareness of Open Data and Crowdsourcing, as well as the role of space assets as a source of data and an enabling technology. This awareness should also cover the untapped economic potential and the ability to generate new services for Open Data and Crowdsourcing, and attract more innovators to exploit this potential.

Finally, this challenge and the follow-up activities are expected to contribute to spread the Open Data culture, and encourage public and private stakeholders and organisations to implement Open Data policies.

For more information

This webpage will regularly updated with new information. Furthermore, it will be very soon possible to register for news and updates for this upcoming ITT.

If you want to receive regular updates regarding this ITT and interact with other users, please register here:

Open Data And Crowdsourcing ITT – Expression of Inter

Tender information

08 July 2014, Geneva, Switzerland –UNOSAT and The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) (www.iss-casis.org) have started a collaboration on technology applications that aims to develop and deploy a next-generation high resolution, multi-band hyperspectral imaging system onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Because of its specific location in low orbit around the earth, the ISS provides a premier vantage point from which to observe our planet. For some applications the imagery coming from the station may turn out to be more impactful than many traditional earth observation satellites.

Once operational, the system should be able to support a variety of applications including water and forest-management, environmental management and territorial planning, emergency response, recovery and risk reduction. The particular path followed by the ISS will take the new sensor over areas hosting 90% of Earth’s population. The data stream will be made available to academic institutions, UN entities and national agencies, and other not for profit organizations. It is expected that in time new applications using this hyperspectral sensor will be developed by research partners.

As part of the agreement, UNITAR and CASIS will work together to develop outreach and educational projects, with a specific focus on activities implemented by the UNOSAT Programme to increase capacity in developing and vulnerable countries. UNOSAT will serve as the lead expert in capacity development, applications and training and will work as a bridge between implementing partners and beneficiaries. CASIS will manage the efforts to design, launch, and operate the hyperspectral sensor onboard the ISS, soliciting innovative proposals from both the academic/not-for-profit sectors as well as the commercial market.

CASIS President and Executive Director Gregory H. Johnson said in a press communiqué released in July;“This initiative will provide UN partners the unprecedented ability to leverage the vantage point of the ISS to improve humanitarian relief, and recovery capabilities in real time.” UNOSAT has already partnered with research actors to use the unique potential of the ISS for the greater good. The partnership with CASIS has particular meaning for UNOSAT because it complements the satellite data the Programme uses routinely to carry out its analysis work.

Einar Bjorgo, who manages UNOSAT, confirms: “The ISS provides a unique opportunity for us to inspire new solutions and applications, and to share the fruits of this research with Member States and UN agencies and programmes that work to protect those in greater need and those exposed to disaster risk”.

UNOSAT is a technology-intensive programme delivering imagery analysis and satellite solutions to relief and development organizations within and outside the UN system to help make a difference in critical areas such as humanitarian relief, human security, strategic territorial and development planning. UNOSAT develops applied research solutions keeping in sight the needs of the beneficiaries at the end of the process.

The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) was selected by NASA in July 2011 to maximize use of the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory through 2020. CASIS is dedicated to supporting and accelerating innovations and new discoveries that will enhance the health and wellbeing of people and our planet. For more information, visit www.iss-casis.org.

For opportunities in research and technology development aboard ISS National Laboratory
See more at

PressRelease

CASIS PressRelease

After the service release that took place in April 2014, a new service release was delivered on 26 June 2014 by MyOcean 2

This new service release concerns both products and services:

  • Products: new and updated reanalysis and reprocessing products have been added to the catalogue as well as the integration of data coming from the Chinese satellite HY-2A (Haiyang-2A)
  • Services: advanced search functions in the catalogue have been implemented, navigation on the web portal has been improved as well as the viewing functionality and an authenticated MyOcean FTP download mechanism is now available for all ARCTIC, NORTHWESTSHELF and SEAICE products.

The release also includes a brand new version of the web portal. Visit http://marine.copernicus.eu/ to discover it.

MyOcean 2 is the EU-funded project responsible for the implementation of the pre-operational version of the Copernicus marine environment monitoring service.

The Climate Symposium 2014 will take place in Darmstadt, Germany from 13 to 17 October 2014.

The symposium will be an important step towards defining requirements, and the further development of an efficient and sustained international space-based Earth observing system. This symposium is intended to bring together the international experts in climate observations, research, analysis and modelling to present and discuss results from their studies, with a particular emphasis on the role of space-based Earth observations in improving our knowledge of the current climate at global and regional scales, and in the assessment of models used for climate projections.

The detailed programme of the symposium is now available on the event website. Registration is open.

Visit the syposium website

PRAGUE — The European Space Agency has modified the frequencies used by some of its radar Earth observation satellites to reduce the signal interference from ground-based wireless communications systems that are often operating illegally, ESA Earth Observation Director Volker Liebig said June 13.

Liebig said the interference is one reason the 20-nation ESA and other space agencies are joining operators of telecommunications satellites in fighting attempts by wireless broadband network operators to be granted use of spectrum now reserved for satellites.

Addressing a briefing at London’s Royal Society to discuss results from ESA satellites studying climate change, Liebig said many users of wireless communications are violating the regulatory terms of use for their devices — for example, operating them outside when only indoor use has been given regulatory approval.

ESA has protested against ground users, some of them military, of radars that should not be in the frequencies used by radar Earth observation spacecraft. The agency’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellite regularly encounters signal interference.

A similar satellite being designed for NASA, the Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite to launch late this year, has been specifically designed to be able to separate environment signals from the interference it is certain to encounter from terrestrial networks.

Liebig said ESA will be active at the World Radiocommunications Conference organized by the International Telecommunication Union and scheduled for 2015, at which terrestrial wireless network operators are expected to seek additional bandwidth, some of it now reserved for satellite telecommunications and Earth observation systems.

Europe’s Sentinel satellites are among those whose frequencies have been modified to get around interference. The Sentinel spacecraft, with a variety of payloads and sensors including radar, are part of the European Commission-owned Copernicus Earth observation program.

The first of these spacecraft, the radar-equipped Sentinel-1A, was launched in April aboard a European version of Russia’s Soyuz rocket.

Liebig said the Soyuz rocket left Sentinel-1A in an orbit that was about 8 kilometers lower than planned — but still within the contracted orbital parameters agreed to with launch services provider Arianespace of Evry, France.

As a result, it will take ground controllers about four weeks longer than planned to raise the orbit and complete verifications before declaring it fully operational.

As Sentinel satellites are launched and begin adding to the Copernicus data bank they will increase the already huge volume of satellite data that need to be stored and analyzed.

To do this, ESA in 2009 persuaded its member governments to fund what then was considered an odd agency program called the Climate Change Initiative (CCI). The British government is paying about one-quarter of CCI’s 75 million euros ($100 million) in cost between 2009 and 2016.

British Science Minister David Willetts, who is responsible for space policy, said Britain is making further investments in computing power for the U.K. Met Office to aid it in producing data on climate change, and in climate-change analysis by the British National Physical Laboratory.

Liebig said that ESA’s CCI proposal met so much resistance from the agency’s governments that it was easier for him to win backing for a billion-euro satellite infrastructure than for the 75 million-euro CCI program.

Several governments at the time said ESA’s job as a research and development agency should not extend to taking responsibility for the long-term storage of environmental data, just as ESA will be transferring the Sentinel satellites to the European Commission for operations in Copernicus.

“I think this is one of the best investments ESA ever made,” Liebig said, referring to CCI. Whether ESA governments will agree when they will be asked to renew the program in 2016 is not clear, he said.

Especially through its Cryosat satellite, ESA has made monitoring of polar ice sheets one of its specialties among the 50 essential climate variables that have been identified by the Global Climate Observing System, part of the World Meteorological Organization, as important indicators.

ESA and NASA joined forces on the IceBridge program that has culled several decades of data from 10 satellites to examine polar ice. The data from the program, which is ongoing, show that the net amount of ice in the polar regions is reducing despite regional variations and is a contributor to the global rise in sea levels.

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The US government’s Ozone Widget Framework provides a way to combine geospatial visualisation and analysis services on the fly in an interactive environment. Patrick Collins explains how it works
.

The open-source release of the Ozone Widget Framework (OWF) in late 2012 ushered in a new way of creating and sharing online services. OWF provides a cloud-based environment where online content and services from different providers can all be presented in a single instance, and events that occur in one service can be used to trigger other actions, even across traditionally unconnected services and technologies. The display and event handling capabilities of the framework provide a unique canvas on which providers of online services can collaborate.


For the geospatial community, OWF promises a new paradigm in online mapping applications, as well as GIS and remote sensing analysis capabilities in a cloud implementation. Forward-thinking companies are building widgets that leverage OWF and can be combined with other geospatial visualisation and analysis services to build cross-platform applications on the fly in an interactive environment. 


Originally developed as a project for the US Government, OWF was designed as a way for agencies to share information and applications in a single interface. It was initially distributed solely within the US Government and saw great successes. The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act mandated the release of the OWF to the public as freely available software for consumption by commercial and other non-government entities. Its release has been lauded as a great step by the federal government to create cohesion between the services shared by governments, commercial industry and other non-governmental organisations. 


It also has great implications for international developers of geospatial software as well. The open source nature of OWF means that the software is available to anyone interested in developing widgets for use in the framework, which will help foster collaboration between businesses and countries alike. 

Implications


In a basic sense, OWF is a cloud-enabled framework that can display content and services, known as widgets, from different sources in a single interface. Beyond simple display capabilities, it provides the ability to create event-handling rules that operate between these sources. Widgets can ‘shout’ events that happen within their construct and other widgets can ‘listen’ for these events, which can trigger a response from that new widget. This widget can then ‘shout’ its event for other widgets to hear, creating an event handling system that is decentralised from any of the widget’s specific design. This allows for information-sharing and custom workflow management built on previously disconnected sources of information and functionality. 


The benefit here is that distributed entities can now take siloed stores of information or discrete functionality slices from the organisation and make them available to the larger organisation as a whole without having to centralise the data or servers that are holding it. It also means that the consumer can now take widgets published by non-partnered organisations and create integrated user interfaces that combine the functionality from different companies. 

How does it work?


As an example, in Figure 1, we can see what appears to be a single, fluid interface involving a map display, a data catalogue provided by the Exelis Jagwire data management component, and a list of analysis functionalities provided by the ENVI Services Engine. While these appear to be part of a singly coded interface, they are, in fact, discrete widgets that are providing services and/or data from separate servers. 


This interface is derived from four individually running widgets. Each of these widgets can be added as a different component to a single interface, or ‘dashboard’, which can then be shared with others as a single entity. Dashboards can also be created on the fly by individual users to create a custom interface specific to their workflow.


Here’s how it works. When a user clicks on a data source in the widget, that widget ‘shouts’ the event to the map widget, which zooms to the appropriate extent and displays the data. Clicking on an analysis task in the ESE Tasks widget shouts out to the ESE Parameters widget below it, which then displays the appropriate parameter list for that specific task. The parameters task is then listening for an event from the catalogue, where a click on a dataset sets it as the input for the task which, once it completes, sends the data source back to Jagwire and to the map display. 


Now, while this may not seem any different than, say, a JavaScript client with all the embedded functionality inside of it, the great part about OWF is that you can sub in different widgets for pieces of the dashboard. For instance, a different catalogue, mapping, visualisation or analysis widget could easily be put in place of one of the other components of the dashboard, providing access to valuable functionality provided by those new components. The widgets themselves are reusable, meaning that you can take individual slices of functionality and mash them up with self-designed widgets or those developed by other companies, designing the way that the widgets interact with each other within the framework itself. 


In Figure 2, we can see an example of a new interface, which uses the Exelis LiDAR Viewer widget instead of the Exelis Map widget. This was created by simply replacing the Map widget with the LiDAR viewer widget, and defining the way that the LiDAR viewer responds to events within the other components of the dashboard, such as the clicking of a dataset within the Jagwire widget. 


In this new dashboard, clicking on a LiDAR dataset brings that point cloud up in the streaming viewer and allows the user to manipulate the dataset using the mouse or keyboard controls. This highlights one of the key benefits of OWF, which is the ability to quickly configure dashboards built from different functionality components and define the way that those components interact with each other. This greatly simplifies the creation of workflow-specific interfaces and further enables both the individual analyst as well as analysis teams within a cloud-based network. 

Summary


With the recent open-source release of OWF, end-users are now able to quickly create workflow-specific interfaces from previously disconnected slices of functionality. Geospatial companies are working to build out widgets that can be shared among GIS users and data analysts to promote the integration of their technologies into this cloud-enabled, open source framework. Through the adoption of this new paradigm in web-top development by commercial industry, we will begin to see the benefits of on-the-fly, workflow-specific interface development and dissemination that made the OWF such a success before its release.


We will begin to see the benefits of on-the-fly, workflow-specific interface development and dissemination that made the OWF such a success before its release


Patrick Collins is a solution engineer at Exelis Visual Information Solutions (www.exelisvis.com)
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The Philippines is blasting off into the space age with the planned launching of its own microsatellite in July ,2016, with the cooperation of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said the space venture is part of the government’s disaster risk management program.

The space program has two components: the Development of the Philippines’ Earth Observation Microsatellite (DIWATA), with a budget allocation of P800 million; and the Philippine Earth Data Resources and Observation Center (PEDRO), with a budget of P600 million, DOST Secretary Mario Montejo said.

DOST’s Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD) said DIWATA is expected to gather “on-demand and real-time status of the country’s environment, particularly for applications such as disaster risk management, land-use, and aquatic resource assessment and monitoring.”

On the other hand, PEDRO will serve as an earth-receiving station that will “securely receive, process, and exploit and distribute space-borne imagery and derive information from the supported remote sensing satellites.”

The government-owned microsatellite can be used to improve weather detection and forecasts, agricultural growth patterns, and monitor forest cover and the country’s territorial borders, Montejo said.

“We can develop a lot more uses for the microsatellite if we keep on improving its capability to expand its applications,” he added, citing that the Philippines presently relies on third-party service providers and commercial vendors for satellite data and interpretation.

He also said that with a microsatellite and receiving station, the country will be able to gather its own satellite images and other data and not rely anymore on foreign sources.

PCIEERD Executive Director Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevarra said DIWATA will be developed in partnership with the Tohoku University and Hokkaido University of Japan.

She said PCIEERD will monitor the implementation of the space program to be implemented by the University of the Philippines.

“We are going to launch the microsatellite development program this coming July. Then, we will be sending seven engineers to Japan for the training with the two universities,” Guevarra said.

From its development to its launch, making microsatellite involves many stages — from making sensors, payload mass, the microsatellite itself, including testing, and finally the launching, Guevarra pointed out. She expressed hope that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will allow the DOST to launch the microsatellite in 2016.

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Sri Lanka was in the process of designing, developing and launching of its own small earth observation satellite and the project would commence once the funds were allocated, Science and Technology Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said.

Minister ranawaka expressed these views while addressing a seminar for representatives of ‘Countries that Forecast and Study Drought through Space Technology’ at Mount Lavinia Hotel today.

“Space technology, indeed, is one of those strategic technologies.There are several important initiatives pertaining to development of space technologies and their applications that have been planned to be implemented to during the next few years, with some of the activities already in progress,” Minister Ranawaka said.

Minister Ranawaka said the project proposal developed by the Arthur C Clarke institute for modern technologies for this purpose had already been submitted to the Government, and the project activities would commence as soon as the fund allocations were finalized.

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