A scientific adventure supported by Astrium and Infoterra

‘Science Travellers’ has given secondary school students, the decision-makers of tomorrow, the opportunity to discover what’s at stake for the future of our planet and to take a scientific and socially-responsible approach to such issues by participating in three expeditions to environments which are much affected by global warming: ‘Ice Travellers 2006’ took them to the Arctic; ‘Sand Travellers 2007 to the Sahara; and ‘River Travellers 2008’ into the depths of the Guyanese forest.

The expeditions allowed them to get hands-on experience of exploration and of the demanding world of scientific research. In parallel to their studies, they prepared and made a genuine expedition into an exceptional region. They conducted a real scientific campaign in a natural environment greatly exposed to climate changes. And they took part in developing space technologies related to Earth observation and saw, first-hand, the state that our planet is in.

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Based on information gathered in the field and data from Earth observation satellites, the reports on environmental impact, climate, biodiversity, icecap melt, desertification, the state of the forest and the planet’s water reserves ring alarm bells. With its emphasis on fostering scientific study and sensitising as many people as possible to the issues that threaten our planet, the ‘Science Travellers’ project is based on the latest advances to emerge from space research and its concrete applications in the public domain.

For Astrium and its subsidiary Infoterra, ‘Science Travellers’ was a unique opportunity to demonstrate the importance of the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) programme to the general public.

Astrium and Infoterra have developed a lightweight system to allow teams in the field to communicate and exchange geo-localised information with a coordination centre. This system combines navigation (GPS receiver), satellite communications (narrow band and broad band) and geographical information (satellite imagery and maps). In this way, the coordination centre can remain in permanent contact with the teams in the field and share directly with them the same geographical information (team position, points of interest, other environment-related information, etc.).

The ‘Science Travellers’ expedition therefore provided an excellent opportunity to try out telecommunications and Earth observation systems that could be used in extreme conditions and by people not specialised in space technologies, in zones with no normal radio communications coverage.

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A scientific adventure supported by Astrium and Infoterra