Skip to content

(September 30, 2013) A satellite for natural disaster monitoring was successfully launched into orbit at 12:37 p.m. Wednesday, China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center has announced.

A satellite for natural disaster monitoring was successfully launched into orbit at 12:37 p.m. Wednesday, China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center has announced.

The satellite Kuaizhou I, or speedy vessel I, will be used to monitor natural disasters and provide disaster-relief information for its user, the National Remote Sensing Center of China, a public institution under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The satellite was carried by a small launch vehicle bearing the same name as the vessel Kuaizhou.

China’s top scientific research institute is in the process of developing five space research satellites, including one for the detection of dark matter particles.

“We expect to launch at least three to four of them before 2015,” said Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) at the first meeting of the academy’s newly founded advisory committee in Beijing Tuesday.

The other four satellites include one for the conduct of quantum science experiments, an X ray telescope, a retrievable scientific study satellite and a solar activity study satellite, Bai said.

Source

(Sep 30 2013) MyReadingMapped is a website providing interactive maps on historic events and other interesting facts using Google Earth, for example shipwrecks locations, environmental disasters or oceanic trenches and underwater phenomena.

Now, they have launched a series of climate change maps including one called “The rise, fall, and migration of civilization due to climate change“, as Google Earth Blog reported.

The blog quoted the author of the map: “Recently I discovered there is a lot of interest online concerning migration and the collapse civilization due to climate change. Just Google it and see the large volume of articles predicting the short-term future. However, one of the things these articles do not do well is discuss how climate change occurred in the past. Which leave a big opening for the anti-global warming crowd to challenge it. They all to some degree mention specific events but none do so to any great extent. They mainly focus on the future. However, these white papers and articles are less convincing because they don’t emphasize the past enough. So I decided to cover as many as I could find and created a Google Map of The Rise, Fall and Migration of Civilization Due To Climate Change.”

Another map includes “The Geography of the Köppen Climate Classification System” enabling visitors to see whether today’s weather matches the Köppen Climate Classification System of more than 100 years ago if they turn on Google Map’s weather feature.

Read more at Google Earth Blog

Source

(October 2013) The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will jointly build and launch an all-weather satellite to support disaster and risk management, understanding movement of tectonic plates to climate change and estimation of crop and tree cover, as reported the Deccan Chronicle


“It is the turning point in India-US relations,” Dr K. Radhakrishnan, the chairman of ISRO, told the newspaper, adding that the new satellite will be the precursor for joint space missions in future. “It is a recognition of our ability to build and launch satellites,” he said.

The satellite will be launched onboard an Indian rocket in 2019 or 2020.

Read more: Deccan Chronicle

Source

Japan plans to launch satellites to monitor the world’s oceans, a report said Sunday, as Chinese government ships sailed in waters around islands controlled by Tokyo and claimed by Beijing.

The Cabinet office plans to launch nine satellites in the next five years to counter piracy and monitor the movements of foreign ships intruding into Japanese territorial waters, the business daily Nikkei reported.

They will also collect data for forecasting natural disasters such as tsunamis, it said.

The report, which cabinet officials could not immediately confirm, came as Japan’s coastguard said three Chinese government ships entered waters around the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.

The maritime surveillance vessels entered the 12-nautical-mile zone around Uotsurijima, one of the Senkaku islands which China calls the Diaoyus, at about 9:30 am (0030 GMT), the coastguard said.

The ships left the area shortly before 1:00 pm, the coastguard said later.

Ships from the two countries have for months traded warnings over intrusions into what each regard as their territory, as Beijing and Tokyo jostle over ownership of the islands.

The territorial row that dates back four decades reignited last September when Tokyo nationalised three islands in the chain, in what it said was a mere administrative change of ownership.

Former Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama came under fire in June after he said he understood China’s claim to the islands.

Source

the European Earth Monitoring Competition 2013 is now open for submissions – with further industry leaders as partners and a prize pool worth well over EUR 350,000.

The Copernicus Masters innovation competition (previously known as GMES Masters) was initiated 2011 by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and T-Systems with endorsement of the European Commission. It is also supported by European Space Imaging GmbH and Astrium Services. In 2013, the BMW Group Research and Technology and GEO magazine have joined the competition as new supporting partners. The Copernicus Masters invites researchers, developers, entrepreneurs, and students to submit ideas for innovative, market-oriented applications based on the use of GMES based Earth observation data between 1 June and 15 September 2013

All information is also available at the competition website www.copernicus-masters.com. If you have any questions or require any further information please contact lara.schaflinger@anwendungszentrum.de

The first three Earth Explorer satellites have surpassed their original objectives, demonstrating the versatility of these collaborative missions.

The three missions in orbit are CryoSat, GOCE and SMOS. Over the past few years they have been providing new information on Earth’s cryosphere, gravity and soil moisture and ocean salinity, respectively, but there have also been several unexpected achievements.

Some of these were outlined at the Paris Air and Space Show this week by Johnny Johannessen, Director General of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center and former Chairman of ESA’s Science Advisory Committee.

While CryoSat continues to measure the thickness of sea ice and continental ice sheets, it has also proven capable of profiling land surfaces and inland water targets. In addition, its radar data are being exploited to monitor sea-level changes and contribute to mapping ocean floor topography.

Earth’s gravity mission, GOCE, has gathered enough data to map Earth’s gravity with unrivalled precision. Scientists further exploited these data to create the first global high-resolution map of the boundary between Earth’s crust and mantle – called the Moho.

GOCE went on to become the first seismometer in orbit when it detected sound waves from the massive earthquake that hit Japan on 11 March 2011.

Launched in 2009, ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellite, SMOS, has been helping us to understand the water cycle. But the mission is also being used to monitor Arctic sea-ice extent and thickness, and can even determine wind speeds under hurricanes – such as last year’s Hurricane Sandy. Most recently, monitoring wetlands has been added to the mission’s repertoire.

The next Earth Explorer, Swarm, is planned for launch later this year. The three-satellite mission aims to unravel one of the most mysterious aspects of our planet: the magnetic field.

The future ADM-Aeolus will be the first space mission to profile the wind on a global scale, and EarthCARE will probe the relationship between clouds, aerosols and radiation.

Biomass was recently selected to become ESA’s seventh Earth Explorer, to measure the amount of biomass and carbon stored in the world’s forests with greater accuracy than ever before.

More details on the Earth Explorer missions and the scientific exploitation of their data will be highlighted at the upcoming Living Planet Symposium, to be held on 9–13 September in Edinburgh, UK.

Source ESA

The South African National Space Agency (Sansa) has increased its earth observation (EO) budget this year to R70-million. “This is a 13% increase on last year’s expenditure,” reports Sansa CEO Dr Sandile Malinga. “The biggest [part of this] spend goes to data acquisition – about R30-million, for imagery from [French EO satel-lite] Spot and [US EO satellite] Landsat and other global satellites and then to improve our systems and turnaround times, so as to improve our service to our customers.”

The agency is also investing in improving its catalogue access system. It holds data going back as far as 1972. “It’s a wealth of information,” he highlights. “We continually have to migrate this data from one medium to another. This data migration, or archive migration, involves significant expenditure.”

Another activity that Sansa is pursuing and which falls under EO is the creation of what is called base infor-mation. Base information pro-vides the foundation for the development of comparative indices allowing satellite data to be used to track changes in environments, whether natural or the result of human activity. For example, vegetation indices and urban development indices.
Recently, Sansa officially unveiled the Spot 5 National Mosaic 2012. This is a mosaic which covers the entire country and is composed of images taken by the Spot 5 satellite last year.

The 2012 edition is the seventh such mosaic of the country compiled from Spot imagery. “We want to ensure that we acquire the data we require as a country,” said Malinga at the launch of the mosaic.
“They say a picture is worth a thousand words – a satellite image has a wealth of information and is worth a million decisions.”
“The Spot mosaic represents a commitment that Sansa has made to provide quality data and services to a variety of users,” explained Sansa EO stakeholder and new business development manager Imraan Saloojee at the same function.“It is used for decision-making as well as to bring benefits to society.”
Sansa distributes the mosaic to national government departments and agencies, all nine provincial governments, and some State-owned com-panies. These recipients include the departments of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Communications, Defence, Environmental Affairs, and Home Affairs; the South African Police Service, the South African National Roads Agency, the South African National Parks, Statistics South Africa, and national electricity utility Eskom, among others.
“The economic value of this mosaic, this satellite data, is in its utility,” stated Department of Science and Technology space science and technology chief director Humbulani Mudau. “If this data is not utilised, for making informed public decisions, we will have missed a chance. _“Data in itself is of little value, unless it is used.”

It takes almost a full year to acquire all the images required to provide total coverage of the country. The first image for the cur-rent mosaic was taken on January 3, 2012, and the last on December 23. Each ‘tile’ in the mosaic covers an area of 60 km by 60 km. The new mosaic features several improvements over the 2011 edition, which suffered from some issues of colour balancing and gaps in the coverage. As a result, Sansa developed an improved method of colour balancing and a better true colour algorithm. And there are no gaps in the 2012 mosaic. Better Coverage

Sansa plans to provide even better coverage in future. “We are in the process of contracting for next-generation satellites Spot 6 and Spot 7, which will be much superior,” reported Malinga. “We have now contracted for Landsat 8.”

Sansa is composed of four divisions – Earth Observation, Space Operations, Space Science and Space Engineering.
Edited by: Martin Zhuwakinyu
Source

(Friday, 05 July 2013)EUMETSAT and the African Union have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation on Earth observation as well as the implementing arrangement for Monitoring of Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) project, funded by the European Development Fund (EDF).

Over the last 20 years, EUMETSAT has developed its cooperation with Africa on access and applications of its satellite data, in particular in major capacity building projects funded by the EDF, like PUMA (Preparation for the use of MSG in Africa) and AMESD (African Monitoring of the Environment for Sustainable Development). EUMETSAT has deployed about 400 low cost data receiving stations over the entire African continent, through which African users can access in real time the full EUMETSAT data stream and environmental information and forecasts from other partners.

The new Memorandum of Understanding on Earth observation establishes a political mechanism for ensuring that future cooperation will continue to benefit all African Union member states.

A first concrete realisation is the EUMETSAT contribution to the MESA capacity building project established between the African Union and the European Union and funded by the European Development Fund, as a follow-up to the PUMA and AMESD projects. Capitalising on previous investments, the project’s focus is to strengthen the capacity to use Earth observation data in Africa, with emphasis on climate and environment applications.

About EUMETSAT

The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites is an intergovernmental organisation based in Darmstadt, Germany, currently with 27 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom) and four Cooperating States (Bulgaria, Iceland, Lithuania, and Serbia).

EUMETSAT operates the geostationary satellites Meteosat-8, -9 and -10 over Europe and Africa, and Meteosat-7 over the Indian Ocean.

EUMETSAT also operates two Metop polar orbiting satellites as part of the Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS) shared with the US National Administration for Atmosphere and Ocean (NOAA). The Metop-B polar-orbiting meteorological satellite, launched on 17 September 2012, became prime operational satellite on 24 April 2013. It replaced Metop-A, the first European polar-orbiting meteorological satellite, which was launched in October 2006. Metop-A will continue operations as long as its available capacities bring benefits to users.

The Jason-2 ocean altimetry satellite, launched on 20 June 2008 and exploited jointly with NOAA, NASA and CNES, added monitoring of sea state, ocean currents and sea level change to the EUMETSAT product portfolio.

The data and products from EUMETSAT’s satellites are vital to weather forecasting and make a significant contribution to the monitoring of environment and the global climate.

Media Relations EUMETSAT
Tel: +49 6151 807 7320
Fax: +49 6151 807 7321
Email: press@eumetsat.int

(4 July 2013) Europe’s ambitious global environmental monitoring programme will now be able to move into operation thanks to the European Parliament’s approval of the multiannual financial framework budget for 2014–20.

Marking a significant political milestone, the multiannual financial framework (MMF) includes the provision of €3786 million (at 2011 economic conditions) for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme, currently being renamed Copernicus.

The approval follows difficult negotiations and the subsequent agreement reached last week at the European Council.

Copernicus is set to make a step change in the way we care for the planet by providing reliable, timely and accurate services to manage the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and help respond to crises.

The success of the programme relies on the provision of robust data, predominately from Earth observation satellites.

ESA is developing the series of Sentinel satellites for this purpose, but also draws on data from other space agencies that are contributing to the programme. In essence, ESA is responsible for the ‘space component’.

The first three Sentinels are expected to be launched within the next 12 months.

Parliament’s approval of the MMF means that the programme can move forward over the next seven years, safeguarding considerable investments already made by ESA and EU Member States.

The legislative framework will be defined by a dedicated Copernicus regulation, a draft of which was proposed by the European Commission on 29 May. The legalities are currently being ironed out by the European Parliament and the European Council.

Coordinating the evolution of the Copernicus Space Component, ESA has prepared a long-term plan for the content and associated funding needs up to 2028.

The plan accounts for the procurement of recurrent Sentinel satellites and instruments, as well as access to data available from contributing missions. It also covers the operation of the Sentinel satellites until 2020.

This Copernicus Space Component Long Term Scenario was recently presented to ESA and EU Member States. It will now be updated to ensure full coherence with the Copernicus regulation once the decision process is finalised.

ESA Member States have already made significant investments in the space component through Ministerial Conferences in 2005, 2008 and 2012. With the MFF now secure, ESA’s Member States may be engaged again towards the end of the decade for the development of the next-generation Copernicus space component, which will be driven by political and service priorities expressed by the EU.

Josef Aschbacher, Head of ESA’s GMES Copernicus Space Office, said, “The approval of the Copernicus programme within the MFF is a major milestone, bearing in mind that in June 2011 it had been proposed to fund Copernicus outside the MFF.

“ESA is clearly very pleased that Copernicus is now within the MFF, albeit with a reduced budget.

“We have made a real effort to propose a solution that responds to Copernicus user priorities in terms of long-term continuity, frequency of observations and evolution of the system within the new level of funding.

“There remains much to be done, but we now look forward to taking the programme into operation.”

source ESA:http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/GMES/Green_light_for_GMES_CopernicusSpacenewsfeed