16th June 2010 In this Issue 1. Highlight: Regulation on the GMES programme and its initial operations 2011-2013 2. The use of Earth Observation satellites in events of volcanic eruptions 3. Earth Observation satellites for monitoring oil spill 4. GMES helps measuring the cost of biodiversity losses in coastal Mediterranean wetlands 5. European Parliament’s resolution

ARLINGTON, VA — 02/03/10 — EADS North America has received a five-year contract to provide commercial radar satellite data to the U.S. government’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) for use in intelligence, military and homeland security applications. The data will be provided by the geo-information service provider, Infoterra GmbH, an EADS Astrium subsidiary that holds the

The National Space Organization (NSPO) under Taiwan’s government-sponsored National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) on February 2 announced the formation of a group specifically for the R&D and manufacturing of an optical remote sensing instrument to be included in the payload of Formosa Satellite (FormoSat) 5, Taiwan’s earth-observation satellite to be launched in 2013 by a

The White House announced on February 1st it will end a civil-military weather satellite program and, instead, pursue two separate lines of polar-orbiting satellites to serve military and civilian users. Terminating the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) is not good news for prime contractor Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems of Los Angeles, which was

Through this agreement MAG Group and its subsidiary will promote a range of Spot Infoterra products and services: • The Pixel FactoryTM – a revolutionary, multi-sensor and multi-resolution processing suite • ISTAR Telecom products – a range of datasets dedicated to wireless telecommunication planning • Global Seeps – offshore oil seepage data for oil exploration

The seminar on Earth Observation Satellites will examine challenges faced by manufacturers of Earth Observation satellites, experiences of operators, the views of end-users and the future of Earth Observation technology. It will provide a platform for satellite engineers to discuss their latest ideas, work in progress and research into solutions. Register your place and submit

In the early 1980s, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., developed the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), an innovative combination of two satellite measurements that allowed them to analyze changes in the “greenness” of Earth as viewed from space. Much like measurements from weather satellites allow meteorologists to track and monitor hurricanes,

“Innovation cannot be organised by decree. It comes from people, and only people — scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and their employees, investors, consumers and public authorities — will make Europe more innovative. But they do not act in a vacuum. They act with a mindset and in a framework which either discourages or incites them to

Shares of satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe Inc. ended their first day trading 13 percent higher than they started, raising millions for the company an its investors and providing more evidence of an IPO market thaw. The Longmont company’s shares rose as much as 31 percent above its initial offer price in its first hour before

The GMES Governance workshop organised by the EARSC and EUROSPACE Associations in cooperation with the GMES Bureau and the European Economic and Social Committee, EESC held on May 11 in Brussels, was successful in that it lived up to the main objective exposing possible governance models and making a first evaluation of their impact on

(5 May 2009) SPOT Image Corporation today announced that it has entered into an agreement with KAI Image as the distributor of Kompsat-2 products to customers across North America. Through this partnership, SPOT Image Corporation can now offer users very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery for projects requiring the detail of a 1-meter image. By

“Decay detection devices” are a “hot topic in arboriculture” at the moment and Giorgio Catena, a leading expert in thermal imaging, gave three presentations including a practical demonstration to put forward a case for thermal imaging cameras. Examples were presented where trees had been assessed using the thermal imaging camera and subsequently felled to be

A newly initiated campaign marks an important step in preparing for how data from the Sentinel-1 European Radar Observatory will be used for applications such as land-cover mapping and crop management. Sentinel-1 is the first of the five missions that ESA is developing for the GMES initiative. Sentinel-1 is a constellation of two C-band radar

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) — India on Monday launched a radar-imaging satellite built with Israeli assistance and equipped with all-weather and night-vision capabilities. The Indian Space Research Organization, which last year launched an unmanned mission to the moon, said RISAT-2 would boost its Earth observation, especially during natural disasters such as floods, cyclones and landslides.

Nigeria will soon be able to map and monitor African resources with local expertise. Nigeria’s first satellite imaging engineers are receiving hands-on training at DMCii in Guildford, UK, to manage and process the images NigeriaSat-1 and the future NigeriaSat-2 and NX satellites upon their return to Nigeria. Now in training, Oludare Mabogunje and Kennedy Uti

(10 April 2009) Optical Surfaces Ltd. has announced that it has supplied, to Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL), a Cassegrain Camera that will be a key component of the satellite platform being prepared for the NigeriaSat-2 program. Due for launch in early 2010, NigeriaSat-2 is being built by SSTL for the National Space Research and