In this Issue
1. European Parliament Discusses EC Communication Addressing GMES
2. DG Enterprise & Industry Highlights the New Space Policy
3. Conference on European Union Space Policy
4. End of European Remote-Sensing Satellite Missions
5. Artic Sea Ice Reaches New Low Record
6. ESA Awards New GMES Contract
GMES Project Corner:
7. Activations of GMES Emergency Management Service
8. G-MOSAIC Second User Workshop
9. MyOcean Product Showcase
10. MACC Stratospheric Ozone Service
1. European Parliament Discusses EC Communication Addressing GMES
At its meeting of 30-31 August 2011, the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) had an exchange of views on the Commission Communication “Towards a space strategy for the European Union that benefits its citizens”. Rapporteur at the EP is Aldo Patriciello from the Group of the European People’s Party. One of the top priorities for the future EU space policy set out by this Communication is implementing, in close collaboration with Member States, the European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme.
2. DG Enterprise & Industry Highlights the New Space Policy
The Enterprise & Industry (European Commission’s Directorate General) magazine n°11 was released on 8 September 2011. An article in this issue highlights the new space policy that the European Commission is developing to ensure continued success to this strategically important sector, and the role which security-related research plays in protecting European citizens.
3. Conference on European Union Space Policy
Under the theme “A space policy for society and citizens”, the 4th annual Conference on European Union Space Policy will take place in Brussels (Belgium) on 8 and 9 November 2011. Among other things, this event offers a perfect opportunity for policy-makers, business leaders, scientists and representatives of civil society to take stock of the current state of the two large-scale programmes in development, Galileo and GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), directly from those in charge of them.
4. End of European Remote-Sensing Satellite Missions
The European Remote-Sensing (ERS) missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) ended on 5 September 2011, after 20 years of continuous high-quality data covering the oceans, land, ice and atmosphere. They paved the way for the development of many new Earth observation techniques. To reduce the risk of collision with other satellites or space debris, the average altitude of the ERS-2 observation satellite had already been lowered from 785km to about 573km before it was safely taken out of service. This summer, the satellite took one last image over the Antilles Islands in the Caribbean.
5. Artic Sea Ice Reaches New Low Record
On 8 September 2011 the Arctic sea ice extent index reached a new historical low point, according to the calculations of a research team at the University of Bremen, which has been observing the sea ice at both poles for many years. Already in July the new record minimum had been expected because in this month the sea ice extent was minimum, compared with the same month in other years. While the Northeast Passage (also known as the Northern Sea Route) has been open to shipping traffic since mid-August, the Northwest Passage –so recently a hostile challenge– could soon become navigable as well.
6. ESA Awards New GMES Contract
The European Space Agency (ESA) has recently signed a three-year contract with Astrium Services for the provision of satellite images to public institutions in Europe under the terms of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme. This contract, initially worth 17 million euros, is being funded by the European Commission. ESA is developing and managing the space component for the GMES initiative.
GMES Projects’ Corner
7. Activations of GMES Emergency Management Service
The GMES Emergency Management Service powered by SAFER (Services and Applications for Emergency Response), a project co-funded under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission, reinforces the EU capacity to respond to emergency situations: it provides a reactive cartographic service to the registered users involved in the management of humanitarian crisis, natural disasters and man-made emergency situations with timely and high quality products derived from Space Observation. During the period covered by this issue (August-September 2011), the SAFER Service has been activated three times due to fires in Greece and Bulgaria, as well as flooding in Pakistan.
8. G-MOSAIC Second User Workshop
The G-MOSAIC (GMES services for Management of Operations, Situation Awareness and Intelligence for regional Crises) Collaborative Project will provide the European Union with intelligence data that can be applied to early warning and crisis prevention as well as to crisis management and rapid interventions in hot spots around the world. It aims at identifying and developing products, methodologies and pilot services for the provision of geo-spatial information in support to EU external relations policies and at contributing to define and demonstrate the sustainability of GMES global security services. It began in January 2009. This article reports on the project’s Second User Workshop which took place this summer.
9. MyOcean Product Showcase
Within the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme (GMES), the aim of MyOcean project is to provide a sustainable service for Ocean Monitoring and Forecasting validated and commissioned by users. Its information includes observations, analysis, reanalysis and forecasts describing the physical state of the ocean and its primary biogeochemical parameters. The project recently published its new product showcase.
10. MACC Stratospheric Ozone Service
MACC (Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate) is the project establishing the core global and regional atmospheric environmental services delivered as a component of Europe’s GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) initiative. It is funded under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union and began on 1 June 2009. To illustrate the evolution of ozone hole, MACC has recently put together an animation showing the amount of ozone day after day during the months of August and September from 2003 until 2011.
Source GMES.Info