[Satellite News – 4-21-08] The European Space Agency (ESA) is prepared to take the lead in Earth observation after awarding a pair of satellites for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program, ESA’s director of Earth observation said.
    The agency awarded Thales Alenia Space a 305 million euro ($482.1 million) contract April 14 to develop the Sentinel-3 satellite and followed that April 17 with a 195 million euro ($309.3 million) contract for EADS Astrium to develop and build the Sentinel-2 Earth observation spacecraft. Sentinal-3 will be devoted to oceanography and land-vegetation monitoring, while Sentinel-2 provide data for the agriculture sector, forestry industry and disaster control and humanitarian relief programs.
    “I think Europe has the most ambitious Earth observation program anywhere in the world,” Volker Liebig, ESA’s director of Earth observation, told Satellite News. “I think I can really say this. We are developing seven [Earth Explorer] satellites. We are developing the Sentinel satellites. We are working on two new metrological missions. We will fly 15 missions until 2015, and the next Ministerial Conference in November will decide about nine more. I don’t think anyone else has such an ambitious Earth observation program. Earth Observation is the second biggest program of ESA and the fastest growing one over the last couple of years.”
    The role of satellites in Earth observation is increasing, due mainly to improvements in satellite technology, Liebig said. “We see more and more that satellite technology is maturing,” he said. “It is becoming an indispensable tool for science as well as for operational applications. Oceanography is a good example. Oceanography today without satellites is now unthinkable. We measure, for example, the sea level and temperatures of the oceans with very high precision from our satellites. If you go to land applications, the Sentinels will be able to provide high-resolution images with high levels of repetition. With them we will be able to work on agricultural applications, which had not been possible yet. There will be forestry and land use maps, which we had not been able to do before. There are many areas — societal, economic — where satellites are having a profound influence. This is the reason why this is the fastest growing space program in Europe.”
    Liebig believes a whole industry will be developed around the GMES program. “The GMES program is a very important program for the satellite industry,” he said. “It is the second area where we have a series of satellites after meteorology. The satellites are planned to work over many decades. This is necessary to develop stable, industrial capabilities over a long period of time. You need a big enough market for these applications, and Europe is creating this through GMES.”