Space, luxury or necessity: situations and prospects for France after the Livre Blanc and Opération Serval

by Guilhem Penent
Monday, July 29, 2013

Exceptions noted, space is traditionally perceived first and foremost through the many technological, scientific, political, and strategic benefits it provides, as witnessed by a few examples taken for The Space Review itself. It is rarer indeed to have it studied through a more operational military perspective: though well anticipated and not that new, the idea that space resources have assumed an essential place in battle management is dependent by definition on user experience and lessons learned from both operations and specific exercises¹.

As judged by the ongoing Opération Serval in Mali as well as France’s new 2013 White Paper on defense and national security, one can only imagine the progress made since 2008 regarding the use of space.

This is particularly the case in France as armed forces have only progressively been made aware of the contributions of space to the greater effectiveness of their actions on ground. Such a feedback is, however, irreplaceable. It is through the latter that French defense has learned how to deal with capabilities that were judged sometimes very narrowly and appreciate them at their true value. Without experience, there can be no knowledge, and therefore neither progress nor assimilation.
As judged by the ongoing Opération Serval in Mali as well as France’s new 2013 White Paper on defense and national security (Livre blanc sur la Défense et la Sécurité nationale, LBDSN), one can only imagine the progress made since 2008 regarding the use of space. We are a long way indeed from the debate that was going on a few years ago between those who were claiming that knowing without having the capacity to act is useless, and those who were noticing that, just as a car cannot drive at night without headlights regardless of the power of its engine, a modern war cannot be waged without timely intelligence.

Lessons learned

It wasn’t until 2010 that, in line with the recommendations of the 2008 White Paper, the Joint Space Command (Commandement interarmées de l’Espace, CIE) was created with an objective explicitly directed toward the use of space assets in support of military operations. Three years after, it clearly embodies the paradigmatic shift that has moved away the French defense from the capability-oriented vision that was dominant before.
As illustrated by various publications and conferences in France, valuable lessons have been learned.² There seems to remain no ambiguity: far from being a luxury, space now stands out as an essential complement. It is seen as a true necessity at both the political/strategic and operational/tactical levels.

CNRS and CNES renew partnership ties

July 16, 2013

Alain Fuchs, President of CNRS, the French national scientific research agency, and Jean-Yves Le Gall, President of CNES, the French space agency, signed a new three-year partnership agreement Tuesday 16 July at CNRS headquarters in Paris. This framework agreement extends the accord first signed in 1976 through which the two bodies are committed to combining their research efforts to study our planet and the Universe.

CNRS and CNES are well aware of their complementary expertise in science and technology research, and of the need to maximize the science value of public funding. The two organizations are pursuing a common vision to ensure optimal return from research employing space assets and they intend to consolidate cooperative ties through their renewed partnership agreement.

The two agencies have already worked together on many science and technology programmes using space assets to deliver great results in Universe sciences and environmental research, material and life sciences, engineering sciences and information and communication technologies. The successful CoRoT and Herschel missions—which recently came to an end—are perfect examples. The Planck mission is continuing its rich harvest of results, while the Megha-Tropiques mission studying the water cycle since 2011 and the SARAL/AltiKa altimetry satellite launched on 25 February are also gathering valuable data.

How satellite imagery helps insurers prepare for disasters

JACQUELINE NELSON

The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jul. 11 2013, 7:22 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Jul. 12 2013, 5:01 AM EDT

When floods ravaged Calgary last month, Swiss Reinsurance Co. Ltd., a firm that works with Canadian insurers, turned to satellite imagery to prepare for what is likely to be the biggest flood coverage payout in Alberta history. The shift toward this interactive technology is helping the industry respond to vulnerability created by a rise in severe weather events.

Advances in satellite image definition and computer processing power now allow insurers and re-insurers to create more precise maps of flood, tornado and hail zones. That speeds up predictions of how many claims insurers will receive and can provide enough information to cut down on the amount of time adjusters must wade through disaster zones. More importantly, the technology justifies higher premiums for properties in areas identified by the images as being prone to flooding, hail storms, tornadoes and other natural disasters.

Severe weather has been a growing concern for the insurance industry for many years, says Insurance Bureau of Canada spokesman Steve Kee. The frequency and severity of natural disasters has been on the rise in Canada, and Alberta has accounted for more disaster-related claims than any other province in recent years. In Calgary, insurers face payouts “much higher” than the $300-million they covered during Alberta’s last instance of major flooding, in 2005, Mr. Kee said.
As satellite imagery better illuminates risk, insurance premiums in some areas could rise, says Wayne Ross, vice-president of national property claims at Aviva Canada Inc., the country’s second-largest personal and commercial insurer. “All insurers are looking at risk by peril, and weather patterns are changing significantly. If you’re in a flood zone, they’re obviously going to take that into account in your water exposure. Or if you’re in a tornado zone and you’re looking at wind losses,” he said.

U.A.E. buys French spy satellites in $913M deal

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UPI) Jul 23, 2013

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

The United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf confrontation with Iran, has bought two military surveillance satellites from France that will give the region's Arab monarchies the capability of spying on the Islamic Republic.
Under the $913.2 million Falcon Eye contract, the Emirates, a federation of seven gulf sheikhdoms, will receive a brace of Helios high-resolution satellites to be built by Astrium, the space division of the European aerospace defense giant European Aeronautics Defense and Space Co. and Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales of France and Finmeccanica of Italy.
Under an annex agreement, French military personnel will aid Emirati technicians in interpreting images and share information delivered by the satellites, said officials who accompanied French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian for the contract signing Monday.
The Emirates spearhead efforts by the Gulf Cooperation Council -- the other members are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain -- to acquire a military surveillance satellite network to bolster an early warning system they've been talking about for a decade.

UAE buys two French surveillance satellites

Abu Dhabi (AFP) July 22, 2013
The United Arab Emirates ordered two military surveillance satellites from France on Monday, in a deal worth more than 700 million euros ($913.2 million).
The Falcon Eye deal, signed in Abu Dhabi over competition from Lockheed Martin of the United States, includes the supply and launch of two high-resolution Helios surveillance satellites, a control station and training for 20 UAE engineers.
The two satellites will be built by Astrium, the space division of EADS, and Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between French Thales and Italian Finmeccanica.
They share in half the contract of "a little over 700 million euros," according to Astrium's chief executive officer Francois Auque.
The deal comes with an annex agreement between the two governments, stating that French military personnel will help their Emirati counterparts in interpreting images, and sharing received intelligence, said a member of the team of the French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
"This evening, we reached a milestone, which is the building of trust," Le Drian told reporters during his flight to Abu Dhabi, adding that he found relations between the two countries "broken" when he took office in May 2012.
"Trust was broken. Nothing was happening," he said.
Le Drian succeeded in reviving dialogue after holding several meetings with UAE officials, including talks earlier this month with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
The last significant military orders received by Paris from the UAE -- a traditional customer of France, date back to 2007, when the Yahsat contract was signed.
It featured the delivery of two communication satellites, and the purchase of three Airbus Military MRTT tanker aircraft.
In 2009, France opened in the UAE its first military base outside Africa, with some 700 personnel stationed permanently.

source:  http://www.spacemart.com

NASA Releases Images of Earth Taken by Distant Spacecraft

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 23, 2013

In this rare image taken on July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn's rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. For a larger version of this image please go here.

Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft on July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the planet.
In the Cassini images Earth and the moon appear as mere dots -- Earth a pale blue and the moon a stark white, visible between Saturn's rings. It was the first time Cassini's highest-resolution camera captured Earth and its moon as two distinct objects.
It also marked the first time people on Earth had advance notice their planet's portrait was being taken from interplanetary distances. NASA invited the public to celebrate by finding Saturn in their part of the sky, waving at the ringed planet and sharing pictures over the Internet. More than 20,000 people around the world participated.
"We can't see individual continents or people in this portrait of Earth, but this pale blue dot is a succinct summary of who we were on July 19," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"Cassini's picture reminds us how tiny our home planet is in the vastness of space, and also testifies to the ingenuity of the citizens of this tiny planet to send a robotic spacecraft so far away from home to study Saturn and take a look-back photo of Earth."

First high-resolution national carbon map - Panama

Washington, DC (SPX) Jul 23, 2013

This is the first high-resolution national carbon map. The highest carbon stocks in Panama are in the humid forests on the Caribbean side (red). The lowest carbon stocks are in developed areas (blue). Image courtesy Carnegie Airborne Observatory.

A team of researchers has for the first time mapped the above ground carbon density of an entire country in high fidelity. They integrated field data with satellite imagery and high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data to map the vegetation and to quantify carbon stocks throughout the Republic of Panama.
The results are the first maps that report carbon stocks locally in areas as small as a hectare (2.5 acres) and yet cover millions of hectares in a short time. The system has the lowest demonstrated uncertainty of any carbon-counting approach yet-a carbon estimation uncertainty of about 10% in each hectare overflown with LiDAR as compared to field-based estimates. Importantly, it can be used across a wide range of vegetation types worldwide.
The new system, described in Carbon Balance and Management, will greatly boost conservation and efforts to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration. It will also inform our understanding of how carbon storage can be used to assess other fundamental ecosystem characteristics such as hydrology, habitat quality, and biodiversity.
The approach provides much-needed technical support for carbon-based economic activities such as the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program* in developing countries.
Panama has complex landscapes, with variable topography, and diverse ecosystems (ranging from grasslands and mangroves to shrublands and dense forests). As a result, Panama is an ideal laboratory to develop and test a method for quantifying aboveground carbon.
Lead author Greg Asner commented: "Three things make this national-scale study unique. First, Panama is an outstanding place for testing carbon mapping approaches due in part to the long-term forest studies that have been undertaken by our partners at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). Second, we have applied the very latest techniques using high-performance instrumentation, resulting in demonstrably high accuracy at fine spatial resolution. And third the partnership permitted us to estimate our errors in a novel way, and we did so over every point on Panamanian soil."

NVIDIA Launches World's First GPU-Accelerated Platform for Geospatial Intelligence Analysts

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

NVIDIA today launched the NVIDIA® GeoInt Accelerator™, the world's first GPU-accelerated geospatial intelligence platform to enable security analysts to find actionable insights quicker and more accurately than ever before from vast quantities of raw data, images and video. The NVIDIA GeoInt Accelerator platform provides defense and homeland security analysts with tools that enable faster processing of high-resolution satellite imagery, facial recognition in surveillance video, combat mission planning using geographic information system (GIS) data, and object recognition in video collected by drones.
It offers a complete solution consisting of an NVIDIA Tesla® GPU accelerated system, software applications for geospatial intelligence analysis, and advanced application development libraries.
"Today's intelligence analyst needs information based on imagery, video, signals intelligence, human intelligence and other sources, in a geospatial context and 'at rate,'" said Nick Buck, CEO Buck Consulting Group and former IT executive with the NRO Ground Directorate. "The NVIDIA GeoInt Accelerator provides developers the opportunity to unleash the power of GPU computing to quickly combine the variety and volume of data sources at the speed needed for mission support, enabling new levels of performance with minimal investment."
Key applications in the NVIDIA GeoInt Accelerator platform include:

• DigitalGlobe - Processes more than three million square kilometers of high-resolution imagery collected daily by satellites for current intelligence on points of interest.
• GeoWeb 3D - Delivers native 3D GIS fusion -- including LIDAR remote sensing technology and full motion video -- without preprocessing.
• Imagus - Real-time facial recognition from video surveillance
• IntuVision Panoptes - Provides object detection and event-driven alerts by processing multiple real-time HD video streams.
• LuciadLightspeed - Provides situational awareness for mission planning by overlaying image, radar, sensor data for line-of-sight analysis.
• NerVve Technologies - Automatically detects objects in images and video streams.

Astrium's satellites qualified by EU within CAP framework

Paris (XNA) Jul 22, 2013

SPOT 6 brings new performance levels to the MARS-CAP program, including heightened resolution, the blue spectral band, enhanced localization of images and unequalled agility, enabling extensive areas to be mapped in record time.

Europe's leading space company Astrium announced Thursday that its SPOT 6 satellite has been qualified by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's in-house science service, to take part in an agricultural survey program.
SPOT 6, the high-resolution Earth observation satellite designed, built and operated by Astrium, joined the other Astrium-operated satellites, SPOT 5, Pleiades 1A and Pleiades 1B, on the program on 1 July, as part of the 2013 MARS-CAP campaign, according to a statement released by the space technology company.
Initiated in 1993 as part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), MARS-CAP is a program run by the European Commission which involves surveying agricultural land by satellite, to verify declarations relating to cultivated land areas and fallow land submitted by farmers.
The European subsidies granted to farmers are based on these declarations and their verification.
SPOT 6 brings new performance levels to the MARS-CAP program, including heightened resolution, the blue spectral band, enhanced localization of images and unequalled agility, enabling extensive areas to be mapped in record time.
"With these newly-qualified satellites, the constellation operated by Astrium Services will now provide a significantly greater volume of images," said Evert Dudok, CEO of Astrium Services.
"The satellites' agility enabling flexibility and reactivity means they can provide an unprecedented level of performance even when programming schedules are updated several times a day as a result of weather forecasts," the Astrium noted.
source:  http://www.spacemart.com

Surrey Satellite’s US Facility Opens Doors to NASA Partnership

July 3, 2013 | Satellite Today | Steve Schuster

NASA’s deep space atomic clock is one of three projects to transform space communications, deep space navigation and in-space propulsion capabilities. Image credit: NASA

[Satellite TODAY 7-3-13] U.K.-based Surrey Satellite Technology is no stranger to delivering small satellite missions, in fact, since the company’s birth in 1981, it has already launched 41 of such spacecraft. Until recently, Surrey hadn’t tapped into the U.S. market from its new Colorado facility, but that’s about to change according to John Paffett, CEO of Surrey Satellite Technology U.S. division (SST-US), a subsidy of the U.K. company.

 

     Optimism and excitement resonate among company officials as upcoming launches develop. "It’s the first of our U.S. missions to go through our new facility in Colorado. It’s a great first step for the group," he said during an exclusive telephone interview with SatelliteTODAY.com on July 1.

 

     "One of the things we found was that there were a large number of payloads that have been developed that didn’t have flight opportunities," he said noting that SST-US can now fill that void with its corporate headquarters and satellite manufacturing located at the new facility providing full mission capabilities. "We were quite surprised by the level of interest and demand," he added.

 

     The process of coordinating satellite missions often presents technicians and managers with significant challenges. But for officials at SST-US, these tasks were not insurmountable, according to Paffet. By understanding constraints and customer requirements, he said SSI-US was not only able to overcome these obstacles, but also increase payload capacity size. "We decided to come up in [capacity] size so we could increase what we could offer to us customer base,” Paffett said. "Rather than having a fixed solution we’ve tried to work with payload providers to fit their payloads," he added.

 

     One of the key offerings of the new U.S. headquarters includes customer payload integration, something that has caught the attention of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). "It’s a low risk satellite platform, very attractive price point, and from a company that has a demonstrated track record for delivery of satellites," Paffett said.

Long-Running NASA/CNES Ocean Satellite Takes Final Bow

July 3, 2013

Artist's concept of the joint NASA/CNES Jason-1 ocean altimetry satellite. During its 11-1/2-year life, Jason-1 helped create a 20-plus-year climate record of global ocean surface topography, providing new insights into ocean circulation, tracking our rising seas and enabling more accurate weather, ocean and climate forecasts.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Jason-1 contributed to this 20-year data record of the global mean sea level change, providing the first direct measurement of this important indicator of global climate change.

Image Credit: 

University of Colorado

Full image and caption

Regional changes in sea level based on the 19-year trend from 1993 through 2012, as measured using radar altimeter data from several satellites, including the NASA/CNES Jason-1 mission. Reds and purples represent the largest increases in sea level, with blues representing the largest decreases. These changes reflect the impact of decadal-scale climate variability on the regional distribution of sea level rise.

Image Credit: 

University of Colorado

PASADENA, Calif. - The curtain has come down on a superstar of the satellite oceanography world that played the "Great Blue Way" of the world's ocean for 11-1/2 years. The successful joint NASA and Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) Jason-1 ocean altimetry satellite was decommissioned this week following the loss of its last remaining transmitter.

China to offer APSCO states remote-sensing satellite data

05 July 2013

China will provide remote-sensing satellite data to Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) member states, according to an APSCO council meeting held recently.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) and APSCO signed an agreement on Earth-observing satellite data-sharing at the meeting. According to the agreement, CNSA will provide remote sensing satellite services to all APSCO member states.

The data will be used to aid in natural disaster reduction and relief in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the agreement.

For more information click here.

Source: http://news.eoportal.org  People's Daily Online

Space agency boosts Earth observation, launches new satellite mosaic of South Africa

05 July 2013

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 satellite] 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 information. Base information provides 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.

Source: Engineering News , http://news.eoportal.org

e2v and Astrium sign contract for imaging sensors to equip the Sentinel 4 satellite

Chelmsford UK (SPX) Jul 17, 2013

File image: Sentinnel-4.

e2v has signed a contract worth 2.8M euro with Astrium, Europe's leading space technology company. e2v will supply imaging sensors to equip the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sentinel 4 Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared (UVN) instrument, which will gather data on the quality of the Earth's atmosphere and its chemical composition from geostationary orbit
Sentinel 4 is part of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative, which is a joint undertaking of the European Commission and the European Space Agency. It will deliver environmental and security services in Europe, in response to the ever-increasing demands for effective environmental policies.
ESA is responsible for the Space component of GMES, of which the five families of Sentinel missions are key components. Within this programme, Sentinel 4 will be carried into orbit onboard the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) geostationary satellite and enable seamless observations of Europe and North Africa to be taken hourly.
e2v's space qualified, custom Charge Coupled Device (CCDs) image sensors will be produced using cutting edge technologies, including back illumination, which delivers the best Quantum Efficiency (QE) and Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) over the wavelength range of interest for this hyperspectral imaging system.
The sensors are mounted in an e2v designed package assembly which manages the electrical, thermal, mechanical and optical interfaces to the instrument. The contract is carried out with funding from the European Union.
Hans Faulks, General Manager High Performances Imaging at e2v, said "e2v is delighted to sign this contract with Astrium. It demonstrates how e2v's imaging technology for Earth observation applications is well recognised and adds to more than 100 Earth observation programmes running with our high performance imaging sensors."

.

Related Links e2v
source:  http://www.spacedaily.com

Nature valued from space

Paris (ESA) Jul 16, 2013

Agricultural landscape of Leczyca, Poland. The map is used to identify linear landscape features such as small hedges and natural fences that protect biodiversity. These features serve as natural habitats or bio corridors. They provide provisioning (genetic, wood), regulating (climate, soil erosion protection, water purification) and cultural (landscape character) ecosystem services but are constantly under threat by urbanisation and modern agriculture practices. Copyright EEA/GISAT.For a larger version of this image please go here.

Satellites show how we can promote economic development in an environmentally sustainable manner by putting a price on nature's resources. Located on the Indonesian island of Lombok, the Mount Rinjani National Park is an important ecosystem for numerous endangered plants and animals.
Just outside the park's boundaries, the fertile soils are exploited for agriculture and much of the forest has been cleared away for farmland. These farms are of great importance to the local economy, but deforestation has gravely affected water availability over the last decade.
While the farms may contribute to an economic profit, the troubles experienced by upstream communities - and the island as a whole - likely cause a deficit.
In many cases, a natural ecosystem's economic value outweighs the potential economic gain by destroying it. How? In the Lombok example, the forest provides water security and filtration, is a natural carbon store, protects against soil erosion and has the potential for ecotourism.
Putting a price on these features is one way to find out if keeping the forest is more profitable than destroying it for farming.
Satellites are being used to create digital elevation models of Mount Rinjani, as well as land use and land cover maps to support hydrological calculations and classify forests. Estimates of forest volume and density help to calculate carbon sequestration. These efforts help in assessing the value of Lombok's forest resource.
This concept of 'natural capital accounting' - also known as Ecosystems Service Assessments - can also be applied to wetlands, deserts, rangelands, grasslands and coastal areas. All of our natural reserves provide valuable assets to society in terms of measurable and accountable services.

GOES-R Improvements to Provide Stunning, Continuous Full-Disk Imagery

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jul 16, 2013

Back-up operations by GOES-WEST were run on May 22, 2013, when NOAA took full-disk scans at 30-minute intervals. This is not regularly done with the current GOES satellites, but GOES-R will provide complete scans of the Western Hemisphere every five minutes and at twice the current resolution. Image Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's next generation of GOES satellites, beginning with GOES-R, will have the ability to take full-disk images of Earth at five-minute intervals.
That means that GOES-R will be able to image everything it can see in the same length of time it takes the current GOES (short for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) series to provide one small image of a stormy region. Increased imagery over a shorter time period will provide more timely and informative data to forecasters everywhere in the Western Hemisphere.
A full-disk image is a picture of one side of Earth from space. For example, a geostationary satellite (one that always hovers over the same spot on Earth) that orbits above the West Coast of the United States would capture that area - the central Pacific Ocean including Hawaii and Polynesia, and south to Antarctica - all in one sphere-shaped image.
Currently, the GOES-East and GOES-West satellites do not have the capability to take those full-disk images every five minutes. The current GOES satellites scan Earth every 30 minutes, or the United States every 15 minutes, or a stormy region every five minutes, but not all at the same time.

The Color of the Ocean: the SABIA-Mar Mission by Bruno Martini and Mauricio Almeida Noernberg for ASTRO Moffett Field CA (SPX) Jul 16, 2013

A large aquamarine-colored plankton bloom is shown stretching across the length of Ireland in the North Atlantic Ocean in this image, captured on 6 June 2006 by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), a dedicated ocean color sensor able to identify phytoplankton concentrations. Image credit: ESA.

Remote sensing of ocean color is a currently well-established science that provides information about water composition and the depth of light penetration based on the ocean color, as seen from space. Ocean color satellites are part of an Earth observing system and, due to its importance in understanding the state of the ocean and its evolution, the international scientific community has agreed to joint efforts to keep a constant constellation of ocean color satellites orbiting our planet.
The first of those ocean color sensors was the CZCS (Coastal Zone Color Scanner) Experiment, launched by NASA in 1978 onboard the Nimbus-7 satellite as part of a proof-of-concept of the capability to measure suspended and dissolved particles in ocean waters from space.
Photosynthetic pigments were the main focus of this pioneering mission. Quantifying and monitoring those pigments is essential to understand the systemic functioning of our planet, since photosynthesis is the process responsible for turning carbon dioxide (CO2) into our breathable oxygen (O2) and for the planet's primary production that sustains the trophic web (the food web).
In this way, plants and microalgae provide food and air for most of Earth's life forms, especially the macroscopic forms such as animals, obviously including humans.
Although the CZCS mission was successful, when this sensor stopped working in 1986, there was a ten year wait until a new ocean color mission was sent into space to continue those studies. These new ocean color sensors - named MOS, OCTS and POLDER - were launched in 1996.
Maintaining ocean color space-borne platforms in orbit is an important goal, since scientists want to observe the ocean over long periods of time. Recently, Brazil and Argentina joined this international constellation to provide valuable data and help to prevent another ocean color data gap.
The mission is called SABIA-Mar, an acronym which means Argentinean-Brazilian Satellite of Environmental Information of the Sea (the name works both in Spanish and Portuguese, the official languages of the respective countries). The name "Sabia" means "true thrush", a group of birds form the genus Turdus that are common in the region of Argentina and Brazil.
The SABIA-Mar mission is an initiative of Agencia Espacial Brasileira - AEB (Brazilian Space Agency), Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - INPE (National Institute for Space Research), both from Brazil and CONAE Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (National Commission of Space Activities) from Argentina.

Astrium Services Eyes Channel Growth

Wednesday, July 10th 2013

Astrium Geo (formerly Spot Imaging) | Toulouse, France

---

• Channel partners are instrumental to support the promotion of Astrium Services’ unrivalled portfolio of products globally.
• Three Channel partner conferences - hosting representatives from over 150 partners from across 50 countries-held to communicate commitment and breadth of company’s solution portfolio and unique differentiators for Value Added Resellers

The success of Astrium Services’ recent global GEO-Information Services Channel Partner conference programme has confirmed the key role that the reseller community plays in the company’s success across its three key business regions.
Astrium Services recently organised three Channel Partner conferences - hosting representatives from over 150 partners from across 50 countries.  Held in Bali to cover the Asia Pacific region, Toulouse for Europe, Middle East & Africa and Colorado for North America, Astrium Services took advantage of the platform to showcase the breadth of its satellite-based earth observation technologies, highlighting the value that organisations can gain from using Astrium geospatial solutions and services.
“Our three global channel events proved a tremendous success, helping the company strengthen its channel relationships, and creating an ideal forum for the geospatial community to engage, share market trends and exchange best practices across their different vertical markets,” commented Bernhard Brenner, Executive Director - Geo information, Astrium Services . “Effective channel partnerships play a key role in taking our business forward, and are instrumental in helping the company take its geo-information solutions to more customers across both our established regions and emerging markets globally.”
With three major satellite (Pléiades-1A/1B and SPOT 6) launches in under two years, and more to come with SPOT 7, Astrium Services is committed to remaining at the forefront of satellite-based earth observation technology and services provision. This platform provides its channel partners with unique and powerful differentiators, enabling them to develop compelling new business solutions and the ability to target new market opportunities. No other geo-information specialist, for example, is able to offer access to both optical and SAR assets – providing Astrium Services partners and their customers with an optimum combination of resolution, revisits and coverage.
Key Astrium products and services showcased at the events included:

·         TerraSAR-X with new acquisition modes available starting in the third quarter of 2013 (Staring Spotlight, Wide ScanSAR)

·         Pléiades VHR optical: 2 satellites now operational, offering a truly reactive, accurate and available twin-satellite constellation

·         SPOT 6 - redefining the benchmark for medium-resolution imagery. Update on SPOT 7 launch

·         Proven examples of how Pléiades, SPOT, TerraSAR-X are fulfilling customer requirements on a daily basis, and are setting new standards in terms of reactivity and acquisition capacity for Astrium Services partners and customers

·         Elevation1&4, 10, 30: an unmatched Elevation series of products with different level of accuracy and price points

·         GEOMaps product range: PléiadesMaps, SPOTMaps1.5, SPOTMaps2.5

·         Live demonstration of GeoStore, Instant Tasking services from GeoStore, Cloud Services and the brand new Partner Portal specifically designed for channel partners

·         Truly innovative and unrivalled solutions only available from Astrium Services - WorldDEM^TM, Pixel and Street Factory^TM, Elevation 1&4

Probing Vegetation Across the Globe

10 July 2013 The first global map of vegetation from the recently launched Proba-V has been unveiled, demonstrating that the minisatellite is on track to continue a 15-year legacy of global vegetation monitoring from space.
Proba-V is designed to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days. The data can also be used for day-by-day tracking of extreme weather, alerting authorities to crop failures, monitoring inland water resources and tracing the steady spread of deserts and deforestation.

First image

Slightly larger than a washing machine, the miniature satellite was launched from French Guiana in the early hours of 7 May. Just over a week later, its Vegetation imager was switched on in time to capture its first image over France’s west coast along the Bay of Biscay.
While still being commissioned, the satellite continued to acquire images that have been stitched together to give us the mission’s first, uncalibrated map of global vegetation – unveiled last week at the Probing Vegetation conference in Antwerp, Belgium.
“The results of these weeks of Proba-V commissioning give us confidence that the Vegetation users will not be disappointed and will benefit from the new higher performance Proba-V products,” noted Alberto Tobias, Head of ESA’s Systems, Software and Technology Department.
The commissioning phase includes a careful cross-calibration of the Vegetation imager with the previous generation of the instrument, operating on France’s Spot-5 satellite, to ensure data compatibility.

European Space Imaging’s optical satellite services help keep the seas safe and clean

Thursday, July 11th 2013

European Space Imaging |

---

European Union agencies and member states tasked with monitoring Europe’s waters can now receive optical satellite imagery within one hour of collection using the near real-time delivery services of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

Following an increasing number of requests for optical satellite data, EMSA published an open tender to incorporate optical imagery and derived information products into the EMSA portfolio of services. The 3 year, 1.5 Million Euro service level agreement was won by European Space Imaging (EUSI) and their subcontractors the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and signed in June 2013.

The complementary teaming of EUSI and the DLR builds on their experience in rapid response, system engineering, image processing and manual interpretation of optical satellite imagery. With a total of six very high resolution (VHR) satellites, the service draws upon DigitalGlobe’s leading constellation of IKONOS, Quickbird, Worldview-1, GeoEye-1 & Worldview-2 and Imagesat International’s EROS-B to fulfil EMSA’s imaging requirements.

The service provides access to globally collected satellite imagery where users have the capability to task the satellites and receive imagery and derived products  in near real-time (1 or 3 hours) within European waters or under Emergency delivery conditions (24 hours) for the rest of the world.

Adrian Zevenbergen, General Manager of EUSI, commented: “The resolutions and rapid revisits available from the latest VHR satellites mean that optical satellite imagery is now a viable resource for the maritime sector. A combination of local satellite tasking and post processing carried out by the DLR allows us to provide a unique, near real-time service to EMSA and the European member states they serve”.

Kondor radar imaging satellite reaches target orbit

Moscow (Voice of Russia) Jul 08, 2013

File image.

A Kondor radar imaging satellite of the Russian Defense Ministry launched with a Strela rocket, a conversion from the Soviet RS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, from the Baikonur space center has reached the target orbit, a Baikonur source said.
"The satellite has separated from the launch vehicle," he said.
It was inserted in the target orbit and taken under control.
NPO Mashinostroyeniya in Reutov, Moscow region, designed and manufactured the satellite fitted with electro-optical equipment for visible and infrared imaging.
Kondor, which is weighs about 1 ton, has a service life of five years, and can transmit images with a resolution of about one meter to the Earth from an altitude of about 500 kilometers.
Strela is the result of minor changes to the two-stage liquid fuel RS-18 missile.
source: http://www.spacewar.com

OHB To Supply German Army SARah radar satellite reconnaissance system

Bremen, Germany (SPX) Jul 08, 2013

File image.

OHB System AG, a member of the space and technology group OHB AG (Prime Standard, ISIN: DE0005936124), has signed a contract with the Federal Office of Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support of the Bundeswehr (BAAINBw) for the development and integration of the "SARah" satellite-based radar reconnaissance system. The contract has a total value of EUR 816 million.
Thanks to the SAR-Lupe system, the Federal Republic of Germany has had capabilities of an international standard in global satellite-based radar reconnaissance since 2007. Developed and built by OHB System AG, the system comprises five satellites and a ground station. It was delivered to the customer at the end of 2008 and has been operating reliably and successfully with the involvement of OHB System AG since then.
The contract governing the operation of SAR-Lupe expires in November 2017. In order to maintain its reconnaissance capabilities in the future, the Federal Republic of Germany is now planning the SARah follow-up system, which will be even more effective.

OHB Signs Contract for Germany’s Next-gen Radar Satellites

By Peter B. de Selding | Jul. 2, 2013

PARIS — OHB AG of Germany on July 2 said it has signed an 816 million-euro ($1.1 billion) contract with the German defense procurement agency, BAAINBw, for the three-satellite SARah radar reconnaissance system to be operational in late 2019.
A decade after crashing into Europe’s satellite prime contractor scene by winning the five-satellite SAR-Lupe radar reconnaissance system award against competition from the larger Astrium Satellites, Bremen-based OHB has repeated its performance, but with a twist: This time, Astrium Satellites will be given a large consolation prize in the form of a subcontract for the full construction of one of the three satelllites. The Astrium satellite will carry a phased-array antenna and borrow from technologies currently in orbit on the two Astrium-built civil/commercial TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X spacecraft.
By building a new-generation active-antenna satellite for the German military, Astrium will amortize the cost of building a replacement for the TerraSAR-X spacecraft, Astrium officials have said, thus extending Germany’s presence in the civil/commercial radar Earth observation world, alongside Italy and Canada.
Astrium officials are looking to collaborate ith MDA Corp. of Canada to find synergies in the development of the next-generation TerraSAR-X and Canada’s three Radarsat Constellation Mission satellites.
In a July 2 statement, OHB said the SARah ground segment, whose development OHB will manage, will be ready for service in 2016 so that the current SAR-Lupe spacecraft are able to use it and smooth the transition to SARah. The SAR-Lupe satellites were declared operational in 2008. OHB’s current SAR-Lupe contract with the German military runs to November 2017.
“In order to maintain its reconnaissance capabilities in the future, the Federal Republic of Germany is now planning the SARah follow-up system, which will be even more effective,” OHB said in is statement. The SARah contract was signed with the German Federal Office of Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support of the Bundeswehr, or BAAINBw.
OHB officials were not immediately available for comment on the tradeoffs that were made between a five-satellite constellation and the next generation system’s three-satellite architecture, notably in revisit time or orbital altitude.
Industry officials said OHB and Astrium are planning to launch all three satellites on two or three Falcon 9 rockets operated by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif., but OHB officials have not confirmed this.

RELATED ARTICLES
OHB, Astrium To Share Work on German Radar Satellites
Workshare To be Divided on Germany’s Next-generation Military Radar Satellites
Falcon 9 Selected To Launch German Military Radar Satellites
source: http://www.spacenews.com

Satellite Vegetation Images Prove Earth Still Green — For Now [Video]

Vegetation satellite images and video were released by NASA and NOAA last week to reveal the greener side of earth. The beautiful green images were created from a year’s worth of satellite data collected by a Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite.
Check out the video for a time-release look at a whole year’s worth of contrast between green and dry regions of our still-thriving planet.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6gUnXpBMfyI

A NASA press statement that came with the new video said that the vegetation data has many practical uses.
After the recent severe droughts in the United States, it’s worth noting that a particularly important purpose will be to provide data to the US Drought Monitor service operated by the National Drought Mitigation Center.
However, the vegetation satellite images can actually provide worldwide information about the greening — or the desertification — of the earth.
NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Laboratory pointed out while “75% of the planet is a relatively unchanging ocean of blue, the remaining 25% of Earth’s surface is a dynamic green.” That’s why the satellite data from April 2012 through April 2013 can create the changing video animation.

Rapidly Making Colorful Landsat-8 Composite with Free Advanced Image Analysis Tools from GeoSage

Monday, June 17th 2013

|

---

Sydney, Australia - 17 June 2013:

Latest high-quality Landsat-8 satellite imagery freely available from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides enormous potential for innovation and applications. There is a great demand for new software tools that can analyze the imagery in a straightforward way.

Currently, while there are many image processing software tools on the market, very few can quickly make beautiful, detail-rich imagery composites with adaptive image stretching and advanced image pan-sharpening. One may spend hours to produce something that ought to be handy in the first place. For many GIS users, it is often hard to find right capable tools (i.e. band combination, image stretching and pan-sharpening) in GIS packages. And for casual users and the general public, dedicated tools to process the vast Landsat imagery archive are lacking.

GeoSage is pleased to release Spectral Transformer tool sets for Landsat-8 imagery to fill in this gap.

Astrium and CNES to improve Pléiades images quality

• Astrium Services will use a new algorithm developed by the French Space Agency (CNES) to automatically sharpen Pléiades’ satellite imagery

• All data, archived or newly acquired when processed now will automatically feature this upgrade

26 June 2013 – Astrium, Europe’s leading space technology company, and CNES, have achieved a major improvement in Pléiades image quality, including sharper products and enhanced geometry.
A new algorithm, developed by the French Space Agency, provides images with better-drawn, neater contours, with a better understanding of the surface texture. These improvements greatly facilitate the analysis of the image (photo-interpretation) and also improve the accuracy of 3D models resulting from stereo taken images.
These gains encompass:

• Better pan-sharpening (see examples below)
• More accurate RPCs (Rational Polynomial Coefficient) improving ortho-rectification and stereoscopic quality
• An almost perfect focal plane characterization

These modifications have been achieved by upgrading the Pléiades Ground Segment. All Pléiades 1A and 1B images processed now will be of better quality including archived data that is reprocessed.
Astrium Services and CNES work in a continuous partnership to improve the quality of images available. This collaborative approach will continue in order to track possible further improvements, throughout the life of the satellites.

source:  http://www.astrium-geo.com/en/4915-astrium-and-cnes-to-improve-pleiades-images-quality