New Space companies and space scale-ups are playing an important role in creating a dynamic European space industry. Now, six additional satellite data providers have joined Copernicus – the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space Programme – as emerging contributing missions.
Today, at the Living Planet Symposium ESA and the EC formalised these agreements.
Copernicus supplies key data feeds into the Copernicus Services for everyday applications and that help address climate change, manage environmental crises, support humanitarian operations, and guide businesses on the path to greater growth and sustainability.
Central to Copernicus are the Sentinel satellites, developed and mainly operated by ESA. However, despite their capabilities, there are data needs that the Sentinel fleet alone cannot fulfil. To fill these gaps, the programme relies on Copernicus Contributing Missions – commercial satellite missions that provide complementary data. Thanks to the six agreements signed today, there are now 25 commercial data providers to supply Copernicus with satellite data across various domains.
The six new companies unveiled at the Living Planet Symposium are the second cohort of emerging contributing missions taken from the European New Space ecosystem. These are Germany’s Marble Imaging, Portugal’s GEOSAT, UK-based SatVu, France’s ORUS , Belgium’s Aerospacelab, and Unseenlabs from France.
ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Simonetta Chelli, said, “The aim of integrating emerging European New Space companies into Copernicus is to ensure the programme remains at the forefront of Earth observation in a fast-evolving sector. I warmly welcome the newest members to the Copernicus Contributing Missions programme.”
Read more about the agreement.
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