GMES - Data access infrastructures

Spot Image is working with the European Space Agency (ESA) to design and implement new Earth observation (EO) data access infrastructures. These infrastructures will enable all satellites contributing to GMES to operate in a coordinated fashion, thereby ensuring true interoperability between space missions.
Spot Image will implement the technologies and standards developed by these projects in the ground segments of the SPOT and PLEIADES satellites.

Heterogeneous Missions Accessibility (HMA)

The HMA project aims to develop a portal for ESA to enable users to access data from the main European EO satellites (TerraSAR-X, SPOT, Pleiades, Cosmo, etc.) and provide standardized access for GMES service suppliers.
The portal will ensure interoperability of catalogue, mission planning and online data access systems.
The infrastructure is currently in definition with roll-out scheduled mid-2008. ESA will manage the portal and individual agencies will be responsible for their own mission servers.

Mission Planning for Constellations and Multi Use(CoMu)

This project intends to develop a tool to support multi-satellite tasking for ESA’s Sentinel mission planning activities.
The project kicked off in January 2006 and will last 2 years. It is being led by a 4-member consortium headed by EADS Astrium France. Spot Image is defining the interface control document for a multi-mission tasking service and demonstrating the feasibility of implementing the interface on the SPOT system’s satellite programming tools.

New Services Integration (NSI)

The NSI project aims to demonstrate the ability of ESA’s portal to rapidly integrate existing EO data processing services. The portal is being developed by Spacebel.
Spot Image has incorporated a Web service in this project allowing users to orthorectify SPOT data on line. To this end, it has developed a Web interface to connect with ESA’s portal in Tarifa (orthorectification kernel of the Andorre system). This interface, called WTCS (Web Transformation Coordinate Service), lets users project level 1A SPOT imagery at level 2A or Ortho level.
NSI kicked off in September 2006 and will run for 1 year.

Participation in the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

Spot Image has been actively involved with the OGC’s testbeds since 2002. These testbeds offer Spot Image a unique opportunity to develop and test new Web-based GIS technologies. Most developments on the testbeds have found applications in ESA projects. For example, WCTS was tested on the OWS2 testbed (OGC Web Services) and implemented in NSI, and more recently in SPS (Sensor Planning Service), which was tested on OWS4 and is set to become the standardized multi-mission tasking interface for the HMA project.
The next testbed (OWS5) scheduled to get underway in July this year is expected to focus on online data access and processing.

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