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New steps in ESA/Commission cooperation on GMES   Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is the response to Europe's need for geo-spatial information services. The initiative provides autonomous and independent access to information for policy-makers, particularly in relation to environment and security. ESA, as main partner to the European Union in GMES, is working on multi-mission facilities and ground segment operations and is preparing the Space Component for GMES with a series of studies and preparatory activities for the development of a series of satellites missions, the Sentinels, and the integration of national and European missions to guarantee continuity of data and services.  More than 40 European and non-European Earth observation satellites have united to provide data to GMES Services over the next years. ESA is coordinating the data acquisitions and optimising resources from the variety of European and non-European EO satellite missions.
Considered missions include ESA Member States’ missions, such as France’s Spot and Pleiades satellites, Germany’s TerraSAR-X, Italy’s Cosmo-SkyMed, the UK-led DMC constellation (including the soon-to-be launched DMC-UK2 and Spain’s Deimos-1), as well as Canada’s Radarsat, Israel’s Eros and other non-European missions distributed through European companies. In addition, ESA will act as data provider for its own EO missions, such as Envisat and ERS-2, as well as its Third Party Missions. Release date: 6 May 2009 |