DAME’s organisation benefits Earth Observation users
Earth observation requires a huge amount of data being collected from satellites on an hourly basis. Over time, as satellites and technologies change and the amount of data piles up from different sources it becomes harder to organise, archive, process and share it with users who might be using different inputs. Standardising data access and processingacross the space industry, especially in the context of big data, is an ongoing challenge.
The Data Intensive Technologies for Multi-mission Environments (DAME) activity with GSTP (4000117760) was conceived to battle some of these challenges.
DAME utilises all the benefits that come with new IT technologies, to improve ground segment architectures, structure their evolution and to improve the infrastructure needed to manage big data. Originally, it was conceived to support the Italian Space Agency and ESA to demonstrate the benefits new IT technologies can bring to Earth Observation and in particular to the ground segment architectures, for big data infrastructure management.
The prime contractor, based in Italy, developed a prototype software system to exploit Earth Observation data and successfully conducted a proof-of-concept demonstration through a selection of use cases -- highlighting the benefits such a system can bring to different user communities. The scenarios related to earth observation data regarding coastal areas (both land and sea), water quality, coastal subsidence and oil spills.
DAME was primarily built for the evolution of the Italian Collaborative Ground Segment but the prototype goes a long way to standardising the deployment of processors across all platforms, and has demonstrated interoperability with the Coastal Thematic Exploitation Platform (C-TEP). The software successfully allows for easy and uniform archiving of a variety of Earth Observation mission data and a simple way to catalogue the value added products generated by a processor, ultimately allowing them to input another processor or for downloading and sharing. It includes a marketplace, where a user can upload their own processor that, once approved by the administrator, is made available to all the users to download and run. It also makes it easy and straightforward to share products like maps and even has an added social and collaborative component – encouraging feedback among the community.
During the demonstration, providers tested and evaluated the different use cases and the feedback DAME received was extremely positive, as the platform was easy to use, easy to understand and welcomed.
They further highlighted the advantage of being able to use data from free missions, such as Sentinel and Landsat, as well as very high resolution commercial missions.
Now the team behind DAME plan to assess its candidacy for other projects.