Looking to the future of Earth observation

13 September 2013

Swarm: ESA’s magnetic field mission

More about this video

The Living Planet Symposium has come to a close in Edinburgh, and a week of talking about past, present and future satellite missions, as well as the scientific challenges facing us, has prepared Earth observation for a new chapter.
Over 300 scientists attended two special sessions organised to discuss ESA’s plans to update the scientific challenges of the Living Planet Programme.
The scientific challenges are the foundation of ESA’s science strategy for Earth observation for the coming years.
The current strategy, called ‘The Changing Earth’, was formulated in 2006 and significant progress has been made since then, thanks to the achievements of ESA’s Earth Explorer missions.
During the dedicated sessions, the scientists’ comments were wide-ranging, emphasising the increasing need to connect ESA’s science activities and technological advances to worldwide societal issues.
Participants also emphasised the need to draw out the strong multidisciplinary connections of these challenges and the increasing need for international collaboration to respond to them.

Alan O’Neill

From the input received, ESA’s Earth Science Advisory Committee (ESAC) will work to refine the scientific challenges for presentation to ESA’s Programme Board for Earth Observation later this year. The aim is to produce the revised strategy for Earth observation during 2014.

Earth Observation Opportunities Expected to Develop in Emerging Markets

September 11, 2013 - New regions, application sectors to drive growth

Paris and Montreal, September 11, 2013 - According to Euroconsult’s recently published research report, Satellite-Based Earth Observation: Market Prospects to 2022, the number of Earth observation (EO) satellites launched by civil government and commercial entities is expected to more than double over the next decade to 360 satellites, translating into $35.8 billion in manufacturing revenues over 2013 to 2022, an 88% increase over the previous decade. New government and commercial entrants are anticipated, with organizations from 42 countries expected to have launched at least a first-generation EO satellite by 2022.

The market for commercial EO data was valued at $1.5 billion in 2012. Growth slowed to 7% over 2011 as a result of the stabilization of U.S. defense procurement; however North America maintains the largest market share with 55% of the total commercial data market. The U.S. NGA will also remain the first customer of commercial data in 2013 despite its reduction in data procurement, an action which led to the combination of the U.S. operators DigitalGlobe and GeoEye in 2013. The net effect of this reduced procurement over 2012 to 2013 will however result in 0% growth in the industry, a figure which disguises growth opportunities elsewhere.

NASA Launches Study of New Global Land Imaging System

Reston, VA (SPX) Sep 20, 2013

The objective of the Sustainable Land Imaging study is to design an approach to develop space-based systems that can provide continuous Landsat-quality data for at least 20 years and be sustained in a tight federal budget environment. The system is planned to continue the 41-year-old Landsat data record, which was assembled with a series of single satellites implemented one at a time.

NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will kick off a quest for an innovative and affordable space-based system to extend the Landsat satellite data record for decades to come with a public forum and call for ideas Wednesday, Sept. 18.
The Sustainable Land Imaging Architecture Study Industry and Partner Day will take place from 1-4:30 p.m. EDT in the NASA Headquarters Webb Auditorium at 300 E St. SW in Washington. Following this public forum, NASA will release a request for information to seek new ideas on the design of such a system.
In April, the Obama Administration directed NASA to conduct the study as part of its initiative to create for the first time a long-term, sustainable system in space to provide Landsat-quality global observations for at least the next 20 years. The Sustainable Land Imaging Program, announced in President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget, directs NASA to lead the overall system architecture study with participation from USGS.
Representatives of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, NASA and USGS will present details of the study process and planning timeline during the public forum.
"We are looking for system design solutions that spur innovation and increase efficiencies, making use of aerospace expertise from across the government and commercial aerospace sector," said David Jarrett, study lead in the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "We will evaluate a range of solutions, including large and small dedicated spacecraft, formation flying, hosted payloads, and international and private sector collaborations."

ESA's GOCE mission to end this year

Paris (ESA) Sep 20, 2013

ESA's GOCE mission has delivered the most accurate model of the 'geoid' ever produced, which will be used to further our understanding of how Earth works. The colours in the image represent deviations in height (-100 m to +100 m) from an ideal geoid. The blue shades represent low values and the reds/yellows represent high values. A precise model of Earth's geoid is crucial for deriving accurate measurements of ocean circulation, sea-level change and terrestrial ice dynamics. The geoid is also used as a reference surface from which to map the topographical features on the planet. In addition, a better understanding of variations in the gravity field will lead to a deeper understanding of Earth's interior, such as the physics and dynamics associated with volcanic activity and earthquakes. Image courtesy ESA/HPF/DLR.

After more than four years mapping Earth's gravity with unrivalled precision, GOCE's mission is nearing its end and the satellite will soon reenter our atmosphere.
The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer - GOCE - has been orbiting Earth since March 2009 at the lowest altitude of any research satellite.
With a sleek, aerodynamic design responsible for it being dubbed the 'Ferrari of space', GOCE has mapped variations in Earth's gravity with extreme detail.
The result is a unique model of the 'geoid', which is essentially a virtual surface where water does not flow from one point to another.
In mid-October, the mission will come to a natural end when it runs out of fuel and the satellite begins its descent towards Earth from a height of about 224 km.
While most of GOCE will disintegrate in the atmosphere, several parts might reach Earth's surface.
When and where these parts might land cannot yet be predicted, but the affected area will be narrowed down closer to the time of reentry. Reentry is expected to happen about three weeks after the fuel is depleted.
Taking into account that two thirds of Earth are covered by oceans and vast areas are thinly populated, the danger to life or property is very low.
About 40 tonnes of manmade space debris reach the ground per year, but the spread and size mean the risk of an individual being struck is lower than being hit by a meteorite.
An international campaign is monitoring the descent, involving the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. The situation is being continuously watched by ESA's Space Debris Office, which will issue reentry predictions and risk assessments.
ESA will keep its Member States and the relevant safety authorities permanently updated.

source:  http://www.spacedaily.com

Take a Virtual, High-Resolution Tour of Vesta

London, UK (SPX) Sep 17, 2013

If you could drive a car around the giant Asteroid Vesta, you would need a road map akin to the atlas of images released from NASA's Dawn mission. Twenty-nine new maps of the asteroid, one of which is shown here, show its mountains and craters at a scale similar to that of common road maps. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.

An atlas of the asteroid, Vesta, created from images taken during the Dawn Mission's Low Altitude Mapping Orbit (LAMO), is now accessible for the public to explore online. The set of maps has been created from mosaics of 10 000 images from Dawn's framing camera (FC) instrument, taken at an average altitude of about 210 kilometres.
The maps are mostly at a scale of 1:200 0000 (1 centimetre = 2 kilometres), about that of regional road touring maps. The atlas will be presented by Dr Thomas Roatsch at the at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2013 in London.
"Creating the atlas has been a painstaking task - each map sheet of this series has used about 400 images,' said Dr Roatsch.
"The atlas shows how extreme the terrain is on such a small body as Vesta. In the south pole projection alone, the Severina crater contours reach a depth of 18 kilometres; just over a hundred kilometres away the mountain peak towers 7 kilometres above the ellipsoid reference level."
The atlas comprises 29 maps using three different projections: Mercator for equatorial regions, Lambert conical projections for mid-latitudes and a stereographic projection for the Rheasilvia basin at Vesta's south pole.

Astrium to provide new satellite imagery for Google Maps and Google Earth

Toulouse, France (SPX) Sep 18, 2013

Pleiades 1A and 1B are Europe's first very high-resolution Earth-observation satellites

Astrium has announced that it has entered into an agreement with Google Inc. to provide satellite imagery in support of Google Maps, Google Earth and other Google products and services. Under this agreement, Astrium Services will provide newly acquired imagery from its Pleiades and SPOT satellites.
Pleiades 1A and 1B are Europe's first very high-resolution Earth-observation satellites, offering exceptional performance to support both commercial and government markets with 50cm resolution imagery products. The SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 constellation, operated in conjunction with Pleiades, offers 1.5m resolution imagery products and is uniquely capable of mapping continent-wide areas.
This four-satellite constellation makes Astrium Services the first satellite operator in the world to offer a complete range of Earth-observation data at different resolutions (from medium to very high-resolution), an image collection capacity of up to 6.5 million square kilometers each day and the ability to image every point of the globe on a daily basis.
With this agreement, Astrium demonstrates again its unique ability to meet the increasing demand for imagery to support the online mapping and location-based services markets.
Through its GEO-Information business, Astrium Services is recognized as one of the leaders in the geo-spatial information market, not least thanks to the now fully integrated skills and resources of the former Spot Image and Infoterra.
The company provides decision-makers with complete solutions enabling them to increase security, boost agricultural performance, maximize oil and gas or mining operations, improve their management of natural resources, and protect the environment.
It has exclusive access to data from the SPOT, TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and Pleiades satellites, coupled with a complete range of space-based data allowing it to offer an unrivalled scope of Earth observation products and services. This extensive portfolio covers the entire geo-information supply chain, from the generation of images to the provision of high added-value information to end-users.
By leveraging the synergies and expertise available across the whole of Astrium Services, its GEO-Information teams develop innovative, yet competitive, custom-made solutions based on the combination and integration of Earth observation, navigation and high-end telecommunications.

source:  http://www.spacedaily.com

Exelis delivers first-of-its-kind commercial payload to DigitalGlobe for WorldView-3 satellite

Wednesday, September 11th 2013

Exelis Visual Information Solutions (formerly ITT Visual Information Solutions) | Rochester, NY

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Exelis delivers first-of-its-kind commercial payload to DigitalGlobe for WorldView-3 satellite
ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept 10, 2013- Exelis has delivered an integrated, super-spectral payload consisting of a telescope, sensor and shortwave infrared system for the WorldView-3 satellite. WorldView-3 is the first multipayload, commercial satellite to carry such capabilities, and will allow DigitalGlobe to further expand its imagery product offerings.
"We met additional requirements and delivered the integrated, multimodality system within a tight timeframe," said Kyle Schmackpfeffer, Exelis Geospatial Systems director of mapping and resource management and space situational awareness. "Meeting DigitalGlobe's additional requirement for a shortwave infrared (SWIR) subsystem capability one year into the original contract demonstrates our agility and strong program execution."

The SWIR bands will penetrate haze, fog, smog, dust, smoke, mist and cirrus clouds and allow clearer identification of materials not visible to the human eye. This is a capability that will be very useful in applications for oil, gas and vegetation and for a number of other uses. For example, the shortwave infrared capability will allow oil and gas companies better mineral characterization to build more accurate geological models for drilling.

European Space Imaging completes VHR data supply in record time to European Commission’s CwRS Campaign

Tuesday, September 10th 2013

European Space Imaging | Munich, Germany

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9 September 2013
European Space Imaging (EUSI) has successfully completed another year’s CwRS campaign in record time supplying almost cloud-free imagery well inside collection windows in keeping with their reputation for speedy delivery of high-quality data.

EUSI has been the most reliable data supplier to the European Commission in the Controls with Remote Sensing (CwRS) program and has delivered the bulk of the data for a yearly increasing number of control sites since the program’s inception in 2004. With success rates close or equal to 100% every year and contributing more than two thirds of the data in the past ten campaigns European Space Imaging has proven to be a most dependable program partner.

Each year CwRS campaign collects around 1,000 images evenly distributed across Europe and totaling more than 240,000 km² – twice the area of England, or 8 times that of Belgium. Generally the collection campaign begins in March in southern Europe and following agricultural flourishing works its way North to completion in August.

In 2013 EUSI had 100% success over a total of 213 control sites. About half the sites were collected within 7 days of the collection window start time, and the rest within 15 days of the window opening. This corresponds to an overall  average site completion time to within the first quarter of the requested windows. All collections were made accessing either WorldView-1, WorldView-2 or QuickBird satellites. European Space Imaging has the benefit of operating their own ground station which, in combination with manual satellite tasking based on real-time weather conditions, leads to the speedy delivery of data for distribution to  European Union Member State administrations.

European Space Imaging is looking forward to continuing its role as dependable imagery partner and to supporting the EU Commission and EU Member States with data supply into the future.

Astrium Services targeting geo information business growth

Toulouse, France (SPX) Sep 15, 2013

View the video here.

As previously announced during its teaser campaign, Astrium Services, Europe's leading space technology company, has launched a new video designed to communicate the diversity and value of its range of Earth observation services, connect to existing and potential customers while strengthening its identity in a highly competitive geo-information market.
Entitled "Picture the Future: How Astrium Services can help shape our world", the video draws upon Astrium's expertise in satellite imagery, monitoring and intelligence services to demonstrate the impact its technology can have on a raft of market segments including the defence and security, civil engineering, avionics, energy, and agriculture industries.
The video, which marks the beginning of a global marketing campaign, illustrates how Astrium Services remains, since almost 30 years, one of the main leaders in the geo-information market. The release of this film signifies several months of activity demonstrating the firm determination to continually improve the way it connects with its customers.
Bernhard Brenner, Executive Director of Astrium Services' GEO-information Division explained:
"In an industry too often characterised by one-size-fits-all solutions we're committed to an era of greater communication with our customers, listening more than ever to them to understand their sector-specific needs and working closely together to deliver new and customised services.
"This is the age of collaboration. Many of our new and evolving service offerings have been developed by working closely with clients seeking new solutions to the daily challenges they face, and the time is right to launch a new campaign underlining our determination to play an even bigger role in helping a range of industries benefit from the advantages of space age technology."
Benefiting from a unique access to the most sophisticated satellite constellation (SPOT, Pleiades, TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X), Astrium Services enables customers to increase security through surveillance, boost agricultural performance, maximize oil and gas or mining operations, improve the management of natural resources, support military operations and protect the environment.
source:  http://www.spacedaily.com

ESA selects SSTL to design Exoplanet satellite mission

Guildford, UK (SPX) Sep 15, 2013

CHEOPS was selected from 25 missions proposed in response to ESA Call for Small Missions in 2012, which was targeting innovative small science missions that offer high value at low cost.

Surrey Satellite Technology has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) for the competitive design phase of CHEOPS science satellite, which will improve mankind's understanding of exoplanets - planets orbiting distant stars outside our solar system. The contractor selection for the implementation phase is planned by mid-2014 and the launch is scheduled late 2017.
The CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite (CHEOPS) will finely characterise known exoplanets and their parent stars with an unprecedented accuracy. The satellite will measure the orbit and radius of those exoplanets, enabling the scientists to assess their potential habitability.
The mission will also act as a "scout" performing preliminary observations on targets for the future European Extremely Large Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope that will be capable of more detailed analysis.
CHEOPS was selected from 25 missions proposed in response to ESA Call for Small Missions in 2012, which was targeting innovative small science missions that offer high value at low cost.

Arctic ice shrinking in volume, too: ESA

Paris (AFP) Sept 11, 2013
Arctic sea ice, which has been declining in area by unprecedented amounts in summer, is also falling in volume, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Wednesday.
In a press release showcasing findings from its science satellite CryoSat, ESA said that in April this year, the Arctic's crust of ice was the thinnest observed in three years of operation.
"CryoSat continues to provide clear evidence of diminishing Arctic sea ice," said Andrew Shepherd, a professor at the University of Leeds in northern England.
"From the satellite's measurements we can see that some parts of the ice pack ice have thinned more rapidly than others, but there has been a decrease in the volume of winter and summer ice over the past three years," ESA quoted Shepherd as saying at a symposium in Edinburgh, Scotland.
"The volume of the sea ice at the end of last winter was less than 15,000 cubic kilometres (3,600 cu. miles), which is lower than any other year going into summer, and indicates less winter growth than usual."
Arctic sea ice -- which floats on the ocean, unlike icesheets, which are on land -- expands and contracts with the seasons.
In 2012, its extent at a key measuring point in the summer season was the lowest on record, a sign that many experts said gave further proof of man-made global warming.
Some ice experts say that the clue to summer ice lies in what happens during the winter. Thinner or less extensive ice in winter can lead to further losses in the following summer.
CryoSat -- essentially CryoSat-2, replacing an original satellite that was lost at launch -- was taken aloft in April 2010.
It has an all-weather microwave radar altimeter, capable of detecting changes in ice thickness to within one centimetre (0.4 of an inch).
The satellite had a designed operational life for three years but is in good health and should be able to continue until 2017, ESA added.
source:  http://www.terradaily.com

NASA satellites used to predict zebra migrations

by Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Greenbelt MD (SPX) Aug 12, 2013

Zebra in the Makgadikgadi grasslands. Image Credit: Hattie Bartlam-Brooks.

One of the world's longest migrations of zebras occurs in the African nation of Botswana, but predicting when and where zebras will move has not been possible until now. Using NASA rain and vegetation data, researchers can track when and where arid lands begin to green, and for the first time anticipate if zebras will make the trek or, if the animals find poor conditions en route, understand why they will turn back.
Covering an area of approximately 8,500 square miles (22,000 square kilometers), Botswana's Okavango Delta is one end of the second-longest zebra migration on Earth, a 360-mile (580-kilometer) round trip to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans-the largest salt pan system on the planet.
Zebras walk an unmarked route that takes them to the next best place for grazing, while overhead thundering cloudbursts of late October rains drive new plant growth, filling pockmarks across this largest inland delta in the world. In a matter of weeks, the flooded landscape could yield ecosystems flush with forage for the muscled movers.
High above, Earth-orbiting satellites capture images of the zebras' movements on this epic trek, as well as the daily change in environmental conditions. Zebras don't need data to know when it's time to find better forage: The surge of rain-coaxed grasses greening is their prompt to depart. But now, researchers are able to take that data and predict when the zebras will move.

Gravity variations much bigger than previously thought

Perth, Australia (SPX) Sep 05, 2013

Gravity disturbances over Himalayas, India and parts of South-East Asia. For a larger version of this image please go here.

A joint Australian-German research team led by Curtin University's Dr Christian Hirt has created the highest-resolution maps of Earth's gravity field to date - showing gravitational variations up to 40 per cent larger than previously assumed.
Using detailed topographic information obtained from the US Space Shuttle, a specialist team including Associate Professor Michael Kuhn, Dr Sten Claessens and Moritz Rexer from Curtin's Western Australian Centre for Geodesy and Professor Roland Pail and Thomas Fecher from Technical University Munich improved the resolution of previous global gravity field maps by a factor of 40.
"This is a world-first effort to portray the gravity field for all countries of our planet with unseen detail", Dr Hirt said.
"Our research team calculated free-fall gravity at three billion points - that's one every 200 metres - to create these highest-resolution gravity maps. They show the subtle changes in gravity over most land areas of Earth."
The new gravity maps revealed the variations of free-fall gravity over Earth were much bigger than previously thought.
The Earth's gravitational pull is smallest on the top of the Huascaran mountain in the South American Andes, and largest near the North Pole.

Canada builds up arctic maritime surveillance

Ottawa (UPI) Sep 11, 2013

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

Canada is going ahead with plans to keep closer tabs on arctic shipping amid competing claims on the region, especially those from Russia and northern European states.
Plans to build and put in orbit a constellation of monitoring satellites mean Canada is set to spend millions on a maritime surveillance program that will include additional tasks of maintaining control on resource development in the arctic region.
Canada has actively pursued defense and security programs to assert its claim on the region after incidents involving Russian navy vessels which Canada considered to be too uncomfortable for Canadian defense interests.
Diplomatic exchanges on arctic naval incidents so far have been couched in political language. In Ottawa, however, officials are in no doubt they want to assert Canadian national authority on the northern territories before Russia or other European countries attempt another challenge.
It will be another five years before a Canadian satellite surveillance program focused on arctic maritime traffic comes into play.
In January Ottawa confirmed it would go ahead with Radarsat Constellation Mission which will see the launch of at least three satellites by 2018.
Before the satellites are launched, however, Canada will need to build capacity for receiving and processing vast amounts of information that the space-based intelligence-gathering operation will produce.

Industrial, Scientific Cameras Reach for the Stars

by Winn Hardin, Contrubuting Editor - AIA Posted 08/06/2013
Today, manufacturers of imaging sensors are responding to two competing forces: a desire for larger sensors to provide greater spatial resolution, and the need for improved quantum efficiency for applications ranging from astronomy to flat-panel inspection.
When it comes to larger spatial resolutions, consumer products such as cell phones continue to drive sensor manufacturers to develop new generations of larger sensors for the same cost or less. Many of these megapixel advances in array size have come with an associated reduction of pixel sizes, giving cell phone marketers the material they need for the sales pitch. However, larger sensors have not correlated with similar improvements in image quality as pixel size shrinks below the diffraction limit of low-cost cell phone optics, and smaller pixels often have to be binned together to collect sufficient photons for a usable picture.
These trade-offs run counter to the needs of industrial and scientific customers, who seek more pixels and better light collection and image quality so they can run their production lines faster or acquire images of dynamic biological events or faint stars in far-off galaxies. In response, sensor manufacturers are moving toward larger sensors that maintain pixel size while allowing for larger arrays, as well as new scientific CMOS (sCMOS) cameras that offer the image quality approaching traditional high-end CCD sensors with the speed of CMOS.

Revisiting Space: The Next Business Frontier

by Jeff Foust
Monday, September 9, 2013

In the fall of 2001, Lou Dobbs was the face of space, business, and space business.

“Yet in the next decade, a new form of commerce and a new level of technology will compete with the Internet for the attention span, and dollars, of this very same business community,” wrote the famous business pundit, after describing the tremendous success of Internet-based companies. “Space. Yes, space.” Those words sound like something that could have been said recently, perhaps by someone enthusiastic about the prospects of companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and other “NewSpace” startups. In fact, those comments are a dozen years old, and from someone who has since dropped off the radar of the space community: Lou Dobbs.

“Dobbs projects his own vision of the next big opportunity for business and investors—Space,” a press release for the book stated.

Dobbs made those comments in the introduction of Space: The Next Business Frontier, a book written by Dobbs (with HP Newquist) and published in the fall of 2001. At the time, Dobbs appeared to the public to be uniquely qualified to discuss this new business frontier. As the long-time host of CNN’s Moneyline program, he was one of the best-known figures in business media. Moreover, he was the founder of SPACE.com, a leading website of space news. If Dobbs said space was the next business frontier, the average reader would likely conclude he was on to something.
Was he? I stumbled across my copy of the book recently, laying on top of a bookshelf, dust collecting on the visage of Dobbs that dominates the book’s cover. A copy of the press release from the publisher, Pocket Books, was still tucked inside. “Dobbs projects his own vision of the next big opportunity for business and investors—Space,” the release reads (capitalization in original.) “Dobbs believes that America’s financial destiny is tied to the budding industries that it has established in Space, foreseeing American dominance of space research and space-related business as critical to our continued leadership role in world markets.”

New technique to assess the cost of major flood damage to be unveiled at international conference

5 September 2013
A new approach to calculating the cost of damage caused by flooding is to be presented at the International Conference of Flood Resilience: Experiences in Asia and Europe at the University of Exeter.
The methodology combines information on land use with data on the vulnerability of the area to calculate the cost of both past and future flooding events.

Climate change, along with increased building on flood plains, has led to both a greater likelihood and a higher impact of flooding across the globe.

The method has already been employed to estimate the damage caused by heavy rain events that caused serious flooding in Barcelona in 2011 and in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2013.
As well as being used in the analysis of historical flood situations, the methodology is being used to predict the impact of future flooding, including health impacts of pollution caused by combined sewer overflows. Information on land-use from urban growth projections is coupled with hydraulic modelling results to assess the effectiveness of different strategies for future flood scenarios.
Flooding places enormous pressures on national economies, cities, communities and individuals. The short-term impacts may include many hundreds of casualties, displaced people, serious health problems and huge damage to property and infrastructure. Recovery and rebuilding in the affected areas can take years.
Two hundred experts from nearly forty countries will gather at the University of Exeter from the 5 - 7 September 2013 to discuss the latest advances in flood management plans and flood resilience measures.

Ukraine, Japan to monitor Chernobyl and Fukushima from space

06 September 2013

Ukraine: Ukraine and Japan have agreed to launch a joint satellite project to monitor regions around the crippled Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear plants.
The agreement came during a meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara and his visiting Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida in Kiev. It will be a joint project of Tokyo University and the Ukrainian state space agency. Ukrainian carrier rockets will be used to launch Japanese-developed satellites. Eight miniature satellites will be put into orbit by 2014. These satellites will gather information on the effects of radioactive elements in the surrounding areas of the nuclear plants. They will also receive signals from sensors installed on the ground. These signals will be used to collect information from areas where radiation levels exceed the norm.
Source: http://geospatialworld.net &  wall-street.com

New system for early detection of plant spread in water bodies

Aerial pictures reveal climate change

With the help of aerial images – such as this one showing the western shore of Lake Starnberg – scientists are able to track the spread of certain aquatic plants. This information sheds light on the quality of the water (blue: bare sediment; green and yellow: sparse vegetation; dark red: dense vegetation). (Aerial picture: Landesamt für Vermessung und Geodäsie)

01.08.2013,  Research news

As a result of climate change, certain undesirable aquatic plants are starting to invade German water bodies. Even popular recreation areas like Lake Starnberg have been affected, leading to a growing need to monitor the spread of these plants. Up to now, regular monitoring has proven to be a costly process. But in a new approach, researchers at Technische Universität München (TUM) have developed a quicker and less expensive method.

Taking a dip in a freshwater lake can quickly lose its appeal on contact with slippery aquatic plants. These might include Elodea nuttallii and Najas marina, better known as western waterweed and spiny naiad, both of which have been spreading rapidly in German water bodies in recent years.

Ecologists are able to use them as indicator plants. Their proliferation allows researchers to draw conclusions on water quality – Elodea nuttallii and Najas marina are particularly common in lakes with rising water temperatures. The rapid spread of such plants over a wide area can upset the balance of sensitive lake ecosystems.

Satellite images support research divers

To investigate changes in lake ecosystems, water management authorities regularly monitor plant populations. This requires the observations of divers, who map the “vegetation blankets” at different depths.

This process does produce highly detailed information, but it requires a lot of effort. Doctoral students from TUM’s Chair of Aquatic Systems Biology - Limnological Research Station in Iffeldorf have carried out research on this topic for their dissertations. The result of their work is a new process that will save both time and money.

“This new idea involves replacing some of the diving effort with high-resolution aerial and satellite images,” explains project supervisor Dr. Thomas Schneider. “In order to draw conclusions on plant growth from the imagery produced, we measure reflectance. Each plant species reflects the incident light in a specific way, depending on its pigmentation and structure.”

Idaho State University, NASA use new GIS-satellite imagery program to create effective informational tool for wildfire fighters

August 29, 2013

35 minutes.
That's how long it took for the Idaho State University GIS Center to produce a detailed report that gave Bureau of Land Management wildfire managers information they needed to plan for the recovery of the State Wildfire that burned on the Idaho-Utah border earlier this month – and the wildfire wasn’t even out yet.

In the past, the information collected on everything from burn severity and fire intensity to slope, vegetation and soil type would have taken as long as weeks to collect and distribute.

But now, using satellite imagery and a Geographic Information Systems mapping tool created by ISU GIS Training and Research Center and NASA's Applied Sciences Program, fire managers quickly have pertinent information at their fingertips on their computers. Wildfire managers may soon also have it on their mobile devices and cell phones. ISU and NASA are working in partnership with the BLM and Idaho Department of Lands on this project.

The new program, still in its testing phase, has already been used on several Idaho wildfires, including the Pony and Elk Creek Complex Wildfire in south-central Idaho and the Mabey Fire near Bancroft.

The official name of the project is Rehabilitation Capability Convergence for Ecosystem Recovery (RECOVER). Initial funding of nearly $180,000 for this project is being provided by NASA's Applied Sciences Program and the NASA's High-end Computing Program.

"The RECOVER project is one of the most interesting and important activities currently funded by NASA's Applied Sciences Program," said John Schnase, at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  "We're using a variety of advanced cloud computing, web services, and data grid technologies to dramatically improve the decision-making activities associated with fighting wildfires. We're also setting the stage to use new types of observational data that will be produced by future NASA missions."

NGA modifies strategy for global requirements under GDS

06 September 2013
US: The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) has recently modified its strategy for global requirements under the GEOINT Data Services (GDS).
According to the revised plan, land use or land cover will not be acquired under a separate, global requirement solicitation. The NGA anticipates using the GDS Foundation GEOINT Content Management (FGCM) Regional Contracts to support this effort if requirements occur. Global Ortho Image Service will not be acquired under the GDS program. Global Ortho Image Service will be solicited in the future based on data from multiple imagery sources. A Global Products contract is planned for acquisition under the GDS program, to include NAVPLAN (Navigation Planning) and CADRG (Compressed ARC Digitized Raster Graphic)/ECRG (Enhanced Compressed Raster Graphic)/Geo-Referenced PDF product finishing. The NGA intends to issue a full and open competitive solicitation for a base and two option years for this effort.
Source: fbo.gov & http://geospatialworld.net

JIB Antennas Will Support Ship ID Capability Being Added to Canadas RADARSAT Constellation Mission

Carpinteria CA (SPX) Sep 09, 2013

File image.

Small, lightweight JIB antennas from Northrop Grumman's Astro Aerospace business unit will help provide a new maritime identification capability for Canada's three RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) Earth observation satellites planned for launch in 2018.
Astro Aerospace will provide 13 self-deploying, monopole JIB antennas as part of an Automated Identification System (AIS) being added to the identical radar-imaging satellites under a contract from RCM prime contractor MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.
The RCM satellites will provide C band radar data to RADARSAT-2 users and add new applications made possible through the three-satellite constellation. Improvements include faster recurring area coverage of Canada and reduced risk of a service interruption.
"Our JIB antennas will be part of the key hardware in this world-class constellation of synthetic aperture radar satellites that will add a ship identification capability for enhanced monitoring of Canada's coastal zones," said Astro Aerospace General Manager John A. Alvarez.
"Astro Aerospace has delivered more than 1,000 JIB assemblies for many important missions with 100 percent deployment success."
With an adaptable design configuration, JIB antennas can be tailored to specific applications. They are available in monopole diameters from one-half inch to 1 3/8 inches and any length up to 25 feet. The RCM AIS antennas stow in a low mass and compact 4-inch by 4-inch by 2.5-inch canister.
source:  http://www.spacedaily.com

After a Fire, Before a Flood: NASA's Landsat Directs Restoration to At-Risk Areas

Washington DC (SPX) Sep 09, 2013

The soil burn severity map of the New Mexico Silver Fire shows areas that with high (red), medium (yellow) and low (green) severity burns. Image Credit: USDA Forest Service, Burned Area Emergency Response Team.

While the 138,000-acre Silver Fire still smoldered, forest restoration specialists were on the job. They analyzed maps created using Landsat satellite data to determine where the burn destroyed vegetation and exposed soil - and where to focus emergency restoration efforts.
"The map looked like a big red blob," said Penny Luehring, the U.S. Forest Service's Burned Area Emergency Response and watershed improvement program leader, based in Albuquerque, N.M.
Red means high-severity fire, she explained - and the red areas were concentrated in a watershed drainage that fed communities west of Las Cruces, N.M. So crews got to work. The Burned Area Emergency Response, or BAER, teams are designed to go in as soon as the flames die down to help protect reservoirs, watersheds and infrastructure from post-fire floods and erosion. And Landsat satellites, built by NASA and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, help direct the crews to those forest areas needing attention.
As a wildfire starts to die down, fire managers like Luehring can contact the Forest Service's Remote Sensing Applications Center in Salt Lake City to request maps that identify the high, moderate and low severity burns. When that call comes in, remote sensing specialist Carl Albury finds satellite imagery of the burned forest both pre- and post-fire.
In Landsat images, he looks at two of the 11 spectral bands - the near-infrared band and a short-wave infrared band.
"The near infrared reflects well from healthy vegetation, and the short-wave infrared bands reflect well from exposed ground," Albury said. "By comparing the normalized ratio of the near- and shortwave-infrared bands in the pre-fire image to the post-fire image, we can estimate the burn severity."
The near-infrared wavelength bounces off of healthy plant cells, and so sends back a strong signal to the Landsat detector that isn't present over burned areas, explained Jeff Masek, Landsat program scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. But the shortwave infrared band - added to Landsat satellites starting with Landsat 4 - has a distinct spectral signature for burned areas.
"The char will show up very clearly in the shortwave," Masek said.
Albury takes a ratio of the two spectral bands, both before and after a fire. Comparing those ratios, he creates a rough map of fire severity, called the Burned Area Reflectance Classification, or BARC. The BAER teams calibrate or adjust the maps based on on-the-ground observations, and then use them to plan time-sensitive restoration projects.

NASA's Landsat Revisits Old Flames in Fire Trends

Washington DC (SPX) Sep 05, 2013

The burn severity map of the Wallow Fire from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project shows regions of high severity (red), medium (yellow) and low (green) burns. Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity. (2013, August- last revised). Image Credit: USDA Forest Service/U.S. Geological Survey.

The Wallow Fire burned over 500,000 acres, making it the largest fire in Arizona history, to date. It is one of many large fires that fire managers and researchers have seen scorch forests nationwide since the early 2000s.
"We have entered a new era where we're definitely seeing higher fire activity," said Philip Dennison, a geographer at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. With busy fire seasons, scientists and fire managers are interested in how and why fire frequency, severity and duration changes over time.
To help investigate these trends, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey are using Landsat data to quantify every large fire in the United States since 1984 and map each fire's severity and effect on the land. The project, called the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project, or MTBS, provides long-term burn severity maps and data to help researchers understand fire trends in the United States.
The valuable burn severity data can inform fire management policies and improve the management of resources, said Brad Quayle, a program leader at the USDA Forest Service Remote Sensing Applications Center, or RSAC, in Salt Lake City. Researchers like Dennison also use the data to investigate how and why fire behavior changes over the years. But getting the big picture takes a lot of data over many years, which is why the 27-year MTBS data record relies on data from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey's Landsat program.
Landsat is the longest running Earth-observing satellite program. The data record goes back more than 40 years, collected by a series of satellites that observe land cover at comparable resolution and with the quality necessary for long-term research. Currently Landsat satellites 7 and 8 are in operation.
The MTBS project team creates fire maps from Landsat imagery by analyzing the vegetation in the burned area. The project is a collaboration between RSAC and the USGS Earth Resource Observation and Science Center, or EROS, located in Sioux Falls, S.D. So far, the two organizations have mapped over 16,000 fires from 1984 to 2011 and will soon process data from the recently launched and operational Landsat 8 for the MTBS project.
"It's very important for us to maintain the continuity of having the spectral bands that have been there since day one, particularly the near infrared and short wave infrared bands," said Quayle.

Earth from Space: Salty Turkey

30 August 2013 This image from Japan’s ALOS satellite was acquired over Anatolia’s dry, central plateau on the Asian side of Turkey.
Also known as Asia Minor, the Anatolian peninsula is surrounded by the Black Sea to the north, Mediterranean Sea to the south and Aegean Sea to the west. In this image over the central high plains, we can see the whole of Lake Tersakan on the left side, with part of Lake Tuz in the upper right corner.
Lake Tuz is Turkey’s second largest lake, as well as one of the largest saline lakes in the world.
While some of the surrounding land shows the patchwork of agriculture, other areas are prone to the seasonal flooding of salty water. During the summer months, however, the lakewater recedes to expose a thick layer of salt.
The bright white surface during these dry summer months has been used by Earth-observing satellites to calibrate their sensors for the colour white – much like how you would adjust a camera’s white balance setting.
The salt from Lake Tuz is also mined, providing over half of the salt consumed in Turkey.
In addition to its economic importance, the lake provides an important breeding ground for the Greater Flamingo and the Greater White-fronted Goose.
Japan’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) captured this image on 21 October 2010 with its Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type-2 instrument.
This image is featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
source:  http://www.esa.int

Iceland signs accession agreement with EUMETSAT

Monday, 02 September 2013

Iceland is on its way to becoming a EUMETSAT Member State in 2014 following the signature of the accession agreement by EUMETSAT Director-General Alain Ratier and Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, Minister for Environment and Natural Resources of Iceland on 30 August.

After the completion of the ratification process, Iceland will be fully involved in the strategic decisions of EUMETSAT’s ruling Council, in addition to having access to all EUMETSAT data and products.
Jóhannsson said: "Accurate weather forecasting is particularly important for Iceland and key industries, including fisheries, agriculture and tourism. Accession to EUMETSAT will improve our ability to predict our changeable weather, it will enhance surveillance of the atmosphere and natural phenomena and improve public safety." Árni Snorrason, Director-General of the Icelandic Met Office, said: “Unlimited access to EUMETSAT data and products will benefit road construction, marine and natural science research, universities and software companies in Iceland. In addition, Icelandic companies will be able to bid for contracts and take part in projects within EUMETSAT.”
Ratier added: “By becoming a Member State, Iceland marks its recognition of the benefits provided by our satellites. This is an essential signal to all our Member States at a time when EUMETSAT needs to invest in the renewal of its system of polar-orbiting satellites.”

NASA Data Reveals Mega-Canyon under Greenland Ice Sheet

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 03, 2013

Hidden for all of human history, a 460 mile long canyon has been discovered below Greenland's ice sheet. Using radar data from NASA's Operation IceBridge, scientists found the canyon runs from near the center of the island northward to the fjord of the Petermann Glacier. View a video on the new discovery here.

Data from a NASA airborne science mission reveals evidence of a large and previously unknown canyon hidden under a mile of Greenland ice. The canyon has the characteristics of a winding river channel and is at least 460 miles (750 kilometers) long, making it longer than the Grand Canyon.
In some places, it is as deep as 2,600 feet (800 meters), on scale with segments of the Grand Canyon. This immense feature is thought to predate the ice sheet that has covered Greenland for the last few million years.
"One might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped," said Jonathan Bamber, professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and lead author of the study. "Our research shows there's still a lot left to discover."
Bamber's team published its findings Thursday in the journal Science.
The scientists used thousands of miles of airborne radar data, collected by NASA and researchers from the United Kingdom and Germany over several decades, to piece together the landscape lying beneath the Greenland ice sheet.

Wide-angle view from space

30 August 2013

German Bight in the Wide Scan mode

Officially, the German radar satellite TerraSAR-X should have been out of service for over a year and a half – that's how long it has exceeded its intended lifespan. But engineers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have switched the satellite, which was launched to space on 15 June 2007, to yet another mode: TerraSAR-X can now record image strips over 200 kilometres wide. "The satellite does so by sweeping this large area in multiple stages, very quickly pivoting the radar beam numerous times across the direction of flight," explains DLR mission manager Stefan Buckreuss. For example, the image of the German Bight shows the Frisian Islands from Borkum to Wangerooge and cities such as Wilhelmshaven and Bremen.

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High Above Earth, Satellites Help Direct Ground-Breaking Development Work

August 20, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A space-based partnership between the World Bank and the European Space Agency is opening up new frontiers in international development.
• Using sophisticated Earth observation measurement systems from a constellation of orbiting satellites, eoworld provides scientific data and images to help communities in the developing world protect forests, plan urban growth, harness water resources, manage coastal zones, and increase resilience.
• A new report highlights the success of eoworld’s demonstration projects and the surprising — and sometimes groundbreaking — impact on community development.

When the World Bank first teamed up with the European Space Agency to demonstrate how Earth observation can work for international development, a small climate change adaptation project on the coast of North Africa produced the first big results. 

High above Tunis, three orbiting ESA satellites sent down data pinpointing parts of the Tunisian capital where land was sinking, undermining the city’s ability to withstand storms, earthquakes and extreme weather.
“The results from the satellite data were stunning,” said Sameh Wahba, manager of the Bank’s Urban Development and Resilience unit, which spearheaded the program. “They were quick, cost-effective and technically sound. They gave us visually impressive products that easily communicated the magnitude of the problem to our counterparts in government.  As a result, the government immediately incorporated smart risk mitigation policies into the city’s adaptation and resilience plans.”
In the five years since the eoworld collaboration began, the team has worked to demonstrate how this space-based technology can be applied throughout the Bank’s work in developing countries.  Offering highly specialized mapping and monitoring tools, the team has carried out demonstration projects in more than 20 countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
The satellites deliver real-time data on a wide range of development issues, including climate change, sea levels, water quality, marine environment, coastal erosion, flooding, land movement, forest resource management, agricultural land use, and urban growth.

The use of satellite technology in our work is ground breaking in its ability to track information across hundreds of thousands of kilometers, in a manner that’s highly reliable and cost effective but not intrusive.

Zoubida Allaoua
Director, World Bank Urban & Disaster Risk Management Department

New options for launching smallsats

by Jeff Foust, Monday, August 26, 2013

Virgin Galactic is developing LauncherOne, a dedicated smallsat launcher, and may be one of several companies pursuing a NASA contract for a single smallsat launch. (credit: Virgin Galactic)

Over the last decade, and particularly in the last few years, small satellites have shown an increased potential to serve a variety of missions beyond their past roles as technology demonstration and educational missions. Smallsats, including very small CubeSats with masses of just a few kilograms, are now performing science missions, including monitoring space weather (see “CubeSats get big”, The Space Review, September 10, 2012). Earlier this year, Planet Labs, a startup backed by more than $10 million in investment, launched its first remote sensing smallsats, with plans to deploy a full constellation of such spacecraft as soon as this December (see “Smallsat constellations: the killer app?”, The Space Review, July 1, 2013).

“It’s that point in time where we need to start looking at this,” said Skrobot in regards to a dedicated nanosatellite launch vehicle.

However, those applications for smallsats are only of interest if the satellites can get into space in the first place. Launching smallsats affordably, reliably, and on schedule remains one of the major challenges for future use of small spacecraft, and over the last decade there have been several shifts in solutions to that issue. Several years ago, the smallsat community was placing its bets on dedicated small launch vehicles, like SpaceX’s Falcon 1. More recently, as SpaceX pulled the Falcon 1 from the market, citing limited interest, there’s been a move back to the use of secondary payload accommodations on larger launch vehicles (see “New opportunities for smallsat launches”, The Space Review, August 22, 2011). Now, the balance may be shifting again towards dedicated small launch vehicles and other non-traditional ways of launching satellites.

Flying above the Martian radar

by Jeff Foust, Tuesday, September 3, 2013

MAVEN, slated for launch this November, will arrive at Mars next September to help scientists understand what happened to the planet’s atmosphere over time. (credit: NASA/GSFC)

The future of Mars exploration, it seems, is on wheels. The Mars rover Curiosity, and its elder, smaller counterpart Opportunity, have captured most of the headlines and interest about Mars, as they cross the Martian terrain, seeking in particular to understand if Mars once had conditions suitable for life. NASA is now in the early planning stages of a 2020 rover mission based on Curiosity that will collect samples for later return to Earth.

“We pitched this not as an aeronomy mission, but as a mission to understand the geology and astrobiology of Mars,” Jakosky said of MAVEN.

Yet, NASA’s next mission to Mars, slated to launch in just two and a half months, is a very different kind of spacecraft. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is not a rover, and will pay little attention to the surface of Mars. It won’t even provide much in the way of pretty pictures of the Red Planet. MAVEN, an orbiter, will instead focus on the planet’s tenuous atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind, seeking to understand how the atmosphere evolved over time.
This study of the Martian upper atmosphere, which MAVEN will perform primarily with spectrometers and a package of field and particle instruments, is known as aeronomy. Those behind the mission, though, prefer not to think of MAVEN as an aeronomy mission.
“We would never have been able to sell an aeronomy mission on the basis of doing aeronomy. Just bringing up the word, people fall asleep,” said Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator of MAVEN and a professor at the University of Colorado, during a workshop about the mission late last month held at the university’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) in Boulder. The team, he recalled, went so far as to make sure the word never appeared in the proposal for the mission submitted to NASA.
MAVEN, he and other team members argued, is not a mission to study the Martian atmosphere for its own sake but to probe more fundamental scientific questions about Mars. “We pitched this not as an aeronomy mission, but as a mission to understand the geology and astrobiology of Mars,” he said.

ESA consults imagery to diagnose Envisat anomaly

BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: April 21, 2012


WASHINGTON -- Engineers are analyzing satellite and ground imagery of the European Space Agency's Envisat environmental spacecraft to determine if the $3.4 billion mission can resume after controllers lost contact with the platform April 8.

France's Pleiades imaging satellite took this optical photo of Envisat on April 15 at a range of about 100 kilometers, or approximately 62 miles. Credit: CNES

Optical, radar and laser observations of Envisat show the satellite is intact and in a stable orbit. But engineers have not been able to communicate with the 9-ton satellite since April 8 when it inexplicably stopped responding to commands.
The French space agency, CNES, tasked the Pleiades imaging satellite to snapped photos of Envisat on April 15. The satellites were flying on separate trajectories at about 5 miles per second, but the quick agility of Pleiades, which launched in December, proved sufficient to collect optical imagery of silent Envisat from less than 60 miles away.
Officials are also examining radar imagery from the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques in Wachtberg, Germany.
The optical and radar imagery show Envisat's main body, solar panel and radar antenna.
Engineers are looking closely at the orientation of Envisat's solar panel to gauge whether it is in position to collect sunlight and generate electricity. If Envisat entered safe mode before its batteries were depleted, there could be a chance to regain control of the satellite.
"These unique images will enable us to analyse Envisat's orientation, which will indicate whether we are able to regain contact with the satellite," said Manfred Warhaut, head of ESA's mission operations department.
Tracking data from the U.S. military's Joint Space Operations Center show Envisat remains in a stable orbit about 475 miles above Earth.
ESA officials say the anomaly could be caused by a power failure in Envisat's data handling system or an electrical glitch elsewhere on the satellite.

DigitalGlobe, Eager for Foreign Biz, Presses NOAA For Quarter Meter Resolution

By Colin Clark on August 23, 2013

WASHINGTON: In the next few weeks an unlikely government agency known more for weather than regulating satellites, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), may decide the international future of America’s commercial satellite imagery industry, dominated now by DigitalGlobe.
NOAA licenses American commercial remote sensing satellites, which includes DigitalGlobe’s five satellites currently in orbit. One of the key restrictions these licenses impose on what some call the commercial spy satellite company is how much detail — resolution — their satellite pictures can offer to commercial clients. Currently, the resolution limit is half a meter. although I understand the GeoEye and DigitalGlobe birds will be able to supply photos with resolution as low as 10 centimeters to government clients such as the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. The lowest current official resolution is 41 centimeters, although I understand the next GeoEye and DigitalGlobe birds will be able to supply photos with significantly lower resolutions to government clients such as the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. So if DigitialGlobe has an image at a higher resolution it actually has to make it blurrier before it can sell the image. CLARIFIED RESOLUTIONS AVAILABLE Aug. 26 at 10:30 a.m.

Turkey’s satellite images to open to public ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

August/20/2013

AA Photo

The satellite images received by Turkey’s RASAT satellite will be open to the public through an online portal, the state scientific research institute TÜBİTAK has said in a statement.

TÜBİTAK’s Space Technologies Research Institute (TÜBİTAK UZAY) started a geoportal project with support from the Development Ministry and it is expected to be opened this year.

Turkey’s first observatory satellite manufactured by Turkish engineers was launched into space Aug. 17, 2011 from the Yasny Launch Base in southwestern Russia, bordering Kazakhstan.

RASAT, designed by engineers and technicians from the TÜBİTAK-UZAY, has shot images of an area coming around 3.8 million kilometers to the date.

Turkey’s two-dimension map will be available online this year.

The images are already being used by several public institutions including the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD), Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), general directorate of mineral research and exploration.

In 2013, the demands from 50 public institutions and universities as well as several private firms were met by RASAT.

source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Telemetry data confirms launch of South Korean satellite

Yasny, Russia (Yonhap) Aug 23, 2013

The satellite, also known as the Arirang 5, is South Korea's fourth multipurpose satellite and the first with a synthetic aperture radar, which is an advanced form of side-looking airborne radar that uses radio waves to detect changes in its target area, enabling observation of the earth's surface even at night and regardless of weather conditions.

South Korea's new multipurpose satellite made contact with a ground station in the Asian country early Friday, confirming its successful deployment into its target orbit, officials in Yasny said.
The first communication contact was made at 2:35 a.m. (5:35 a.m. KST), according to the officials from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).
The Korea Multipurpose Satellite-5 (KOMPSAT-5) was launched Thursday from a launch base in Yasny, located some 1,800 kilometers southeast of Moscow, using Russia's Dnepr rocket, a space launch vehicle converted from a Soviet-era intercontinental ballistic missile.
Beacon signals from the satellite were initially picked up by the Troll Satellite Station in Antarctica, 32 minutes following the launch, partly indicating the satellite's successful deployment into its orbit.
"The radio contact with South Korea's ground station in Daejeon further confirms that the satellite successfully reached its target orbit," said Lee Sang-ryool, the head of KARI's Aerospace Systems Laboratory who is also in charge of the KOMPSAT-5 program.
Still, it will take at least four months to confirm the satellite and all its equipment are working properly, he added.
The satellite, also known as the Arirang 5, is South Korea's fourth multipurpose satellite and the first with a synthetic aperture radar, which is an advanced form of side-looking airborne radar that uses radio waves to detect changes in its target area, enabling observation of the earth's surface even at night and regardless of weather conditions.

How the world looked 5,000 years ago!

This beautiful image is a copy of an ancient Egyptian panorama, known as the Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 mural. The mural was discovered by famous English Egyptologists F.W. Green and J.E. Quibell. While studying their drawings, Leon Flying Eagle & Mary Whispering Wind discovered that this ancient artwork is the world’s first map of the entire world. Eagle and Wind believed that the map was made by predynastic Egyptians over 5,000 years ago.

 The artwork allows us a peek into the most ancient form of cartography. Eagle and Wind called the mural the Tribes of the Earth World Map because they noted the various civilizations marked on the map. They believed that these civilizations are represented by the boats. The boat with the big prow represents Egypt. Eagle and Wind adjusted the darker background colour of the Tomb 100 mural to blue to emphasise the contrast between the land and the sea. The continents, oceans, inland seas, and even large lakes, mud flats, and straits were easy to identify.

source:  http://www.geospatialworld.net