GMES: Astrium contributions

GMES - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security: the smart way of looking at the world.

Are we are prepared for the next natural disaster or humanitarian crisis? Can we do more to secure our natural resources, agricultural base, fish stocks, and water supplies? How will our policy decisions impact land use and our transport network? By putting geo-information services into the hands of users in government and business, GMES enables better management of environmental resources and crisis prevention. Within the EADS group, Astrium (including its Infoterra subsidiary) is a major contributor to the European GMES initiative. Astrium’s key expertise in systems architecture and satellites services is invaluable to user communities.

Astrium is responsible for designing and building many of the major satellites in Europe, including Pléiades, MetOp, Aeolus and TerraSAR-X, while the older-but-still-alive Spot, ERS and Envisat, also developed under the leadership of Astrium, are the basis of the Sentinel missions which are being implemented as the initial part of the GMES operational system. Astrium has conducted GMES architecture contracts on behalf of ESA, and is preparing leadership and key contributions at system and instrument level to the first three Sentinel missions.

Astrium is the industrial prime for Sentinel-2 and is responsible for its multispectral instrument. Astrium is also a major industrial partner in Sentinel-1, responsible for the SAR instrument, and for Sentinel-3, EADS CASA is responsible for the microwave radiometer instrument. Astrium is also leading one of the two parallel Phase 0 studies for Sentinels 4 & 5. The Sentinels will be launched from 2011 onwards.

Astrium also offers remote sensing data services and applications, through Infoterra, which specialises in the collection, interpretation, manipulation and distribution of geospatial data. Infoterra is leading two of the three GMES fast-track services: INSCRIT, an information service aiming to reinforce European capacity to respond to crises and emergencies associated with natural, technological and man-made disasters and humanitarian aid, and LMCS (Land Monitoring Core Service) for land-cover mapping at both European and local scale. Infoterra is also leading the BOSS4GMES study which is preparing for the transition to the operational stage and the long-term sustainability of the GMES services.

As the main industry player in GMES, Astrium is committed to delivering environmental intelligence to European citizens, for a safer life and sustainable development of Europe.