TAKING CARE OF EARTH FROM SPACE

M A S P A L O M A S

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION

Maspalomas Satellite Tracking Station is located in the South of Gran Canaria Island, at about 100 Km of the African coast

27° 46’ North in latitude and 15° 38’ West in longitude

Originally built for the NASA Mercury program in 1960.

1960 – 1975. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab.

HISTORY (I/II)

Since the early 80’s involved in remote sensing activities.

First missions were developed under the ESA Earthnet Programme.

In 1997 INTA founded its own Remote Sensing Centre for polar Earth Observation satellites at CEC facilities: CREPAD (Centre for Reception, Processing, Archiving and Dissemination of EO data)

10m antenna 1,8m antenna

HISTORY (II/II)

2,4m antenna

CREPAD Founded on 1997 by the National Institute of Aerospace Technology with the collaboration of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Canary Institute of Marine Sciences, the National Plan of R+D and the European Space Agency

Main Goals To provide the scientific community with remote sensing data and information of interest. To enable technologies to wide spread the use of space based Earth observation. To guarantee technological and scientific community the free access to updated EO data through a centralized service in charge of elaborating added value products. To drive and ease the access to EO technologies, promoting their use for technical and scientific purposes. To promote the use of these applications by means of an adequate distribution policy. To keep an archive of historical data enabling temporal analyses.

Collaborations with companies and institutions specialized in the development of applications and

added-value products.

Internet

Catalogu

e

Reception, Processing and Archiving of EO data centre

1. Acquisition

5. Dissemination

Two 10m antennae

Two 1.8m antennae

One 2.4m antenna

FTP Server

WEB Server

2. Ingestion

3. Archive

Level 0

Internet Catalogue

Online Requests

4. Processing

CD’s / DVD’s Storage shelves

Magnetic Tapes Library

Long-Term Data Preservation in

Virtual Array of Disks (EVA 8100)

More than 60 servers

and workstations

Users

Level 2

INTA CREPAD Current Missions

Satellite Band Sensor Dates

NOAA L AVHRR

ATOVS (AMSU, HIRS)

1986 on

2002 on

IRS-P3 L MOS 1997-2004

SEASTAR L SeaWiFS 1997-2010

AQUA X MODIS 2005 on

SPOT 4-5 X HRV 2007 on

METOP L AVHRR, ASCAT, IASI, AMSU, HIRS, SEM,

A-DCS, MHS, GOME, GRAS 2009 on

CBERS-2B

CBERS-3 X

WFI, MSS, CCD

WFI, MSS, CCD, MUX,PAN

2009-2010

2013 on (to be launched)

TERRA X MODIS 2010 on

NPP X VIIRS, CrIS, ATMS, CERES, OMPS 2012 on

FY-3 L/X VIRR, MERSI, MWRI, IRAS, MWTS,

MWHS, SBUV/TOS, SIM, ERM, SEM 2012 on

Added-Value Products Basic Examples

Sea Surface Temperature

Radiances from the sea surface in the thermal infrared spectral region

•Meteorological and Climatic Models.

•Fish shoals detection.

•Distribution patterns in oceanic circulation.

•Studies over endangered and protected species habitats.

Aerosol Optical Thickness

Average, 1995 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index

NDVI and MVC:

•Biomass, crops and desertification estimations.

•Vegetation areas delimitation.

•Forest fires risk index generation.

•Affected areas assessment.

Chlorophyll a

Chlorophyll concentration:

•Biomass estimation (algae)

•Phytoplankton quantitative information

Diffuse attenuation coefficient:

•Solar light depth penetration

•Turbidity

Applications:

Temperature and humidity vertical profiles, dust, disaster warnings …

Atmosphere

Climatology

MODIS Applications examples over the Macaronesian Area

Saharan dust Fires Phytoplankton Blooms

Submarine Eruptions Tropical Storms

Cap

e V

ert

Madeira

El Hierro Atl

an

tic

Oc

ea

n –

We

st

Afr

ica

Nadine Storm over Azores

Working Lines

• In the Macaronesian area INTA has signed a collaboration agreement with the University of Las Palmas for enhance remote sensing activities and promote scientific research and technology development projects.

• INTA has also made an important investment on investigation, technical implementations and infrastructure development for remote sensing data supporting more than 200 scientific research projects (oceanography, vegetation, land cover, fires detection, oil spill monitoring, climate change, natural hazards, atmospheric studies, quality of waters, etc.).

WORKING LINES - 1

INTA is Direct Readout Data Provider for the European EUMETSAT Advance Retransmission Service in the field of atmosphere

CREPAD services also cover real-time projects like FUEGOS for fire monitoring and detection.

CREPAD provides continued services with environmental parameters to be used in operational systems and networks like REDIAM which belongs to the Junta of Andalusia.

CREPAD supported projects include operational services like ESEOO (establishment of an Spanish system for operational oceanography) and MAIA (international exchange network for management of marine protected areas In the Atlantic coast)

Even though the Canaries Space Centre is not a pure research centre, it performs activities aimed at supporting and enhancing different areas of research and provides scientific data and added-value products to the scientific community:

WORKING LINES - 2

Lines of Research

LINES OF RESEARCH - 1

Environment and Security

• Disaster monitoring, management and recovery

• Risk assessment (prediction models combining satellite data and ground information)

• Assess changes and aid in emergency planning

• Monitoring natural hazards

• Early detection and tracking of fires (surface temperature maps, thermal anomalies detection, risk areas delimitation …)

• Maritime Surveillance: oil spill and vessel detection. Oil spills classification (tankers, platforms, ship bilges, natural oils …)

• Maritime Security: border control for illegal trafficking of people and drugs

• Surveillance of fishing vessels in European waters

The lines of research that could be of interest in the Macaronesian context at present and in a near future could be classified, under INTA’s point of view, in:

Health

• Understanding environmental factors affecting human health and well-being

• Influence of climate on health (early-warning system)

• Influence of Saharan dust on vegetation, waters and human health

Climate and weather change

• Monitoring, assessment and prediction

• Understanding how it affects oceanographic conditions, marine habitat and species migration

• Understanding how it affects local vegetation

LINES OF RESEARCH - 2

Water

• Marine resources monitoring and change detection

• Water quality and quantity monitoring (coastal and reservoirs waters)

• Detection of pollution sources (for tourism and environment surveillance)

• Improving water resource management

• Surveillance of protected natural areas

• Aquiculture and fishing

Land

• Forest management and changes detection

• Soil moisture, Irrigation, Vegetation health and Crop conditions maps

LINES OF RESEARCH - 3

Ecosystems

• Perform regional observation for sustainable development

• Changes detection and mapping: Impact on the sustainable development in the region (for land, vegetation, waters …)

• Improving the management of terrestrial, coastal, and marine ecosystems (including fisheries)

• Survey natural resources and protected areas

We think there are other interesting working lines which are not directly related to research but to provide regular results to the scientific community, assuring long-term sustainability of the resulting services. The main goal would be to provide continued remote sensing data services on an operational basis for integrated land and water resources management.

LINES OF RESEARCH - 4

Conclusions

• providing test beds where scientists can submit their algorithms; • developing ad-hoc chains to generate test batteries and end products for

verification and massive validation results; • supporting researchers to allow them more time for the investigation

itself, without having to worry about programming and/or delivering results;

• providing adequate access to real-time operational services across high-speed communication lines and a sustainable long-term archive to deal with historical and temporary studies.

The highlight of the CEC potential in this collaborative work environment at Macaronesia would not be the research itself, but possibly its high capacity and experience in:

Thank you for your attention!