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ESA (European Space Agency) launches first Sentinel Earth Observation Satellite - Sherlock

Minister for Research and Innovation, Seán Sherlock TD, today (Friday) has welcomed the announcement by the European Space Agency (ESA) that at 21:02 GMT (23:02 CEST) last evening it launched the first in a series of novel Earth Observation (EO) Sentinel satellites under the European Union’s Copernicus Programme.

The Launch, which took place from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, represents the first of a series of satellite launches of the most ambitious global civilian Earth Observation project ever conceived. A multi billion euro initiative, Ireland will benefit directly by accessing data, free of charge, collected by the Sentinel satellites. As an advanced radar mission, Sentinel-1 can image the surface of Earth through cloud and rain both day and night.

The Copernicus programme led by the European Commission (EC) in partnership with ESA and the European Environment Agency (EEA) will form a unified system through which vast amounts of data, acquired from space and from a multitude of ground-based sensors, will provide a range of thematic information services designed to benefit the environment, the way we live, address humanitarian needs and support effective policy-making for a more sustainable future. The services developed will provide accurate, timely and easily accessible information to improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security.

Welcoming the launch Minister Sherlock said: “Copernicus is unique in that nothing of this scale currently exists globally and Europe is now poised to lead in this area - the opportunity for Ireland to play its role in Earth Observation into the future couldn’t be greater given the scope to develop new downstream services to meet the ever increasing national and international demand in this sector”.

The Minister also noted that this data “will provide important new commercial opportunities for Irish SMEs to develop bespoke environmental monitoring services with strong potential for export across international markets leading to new job growth creation opportunities.”

Copernicus will open up business opportunities helping Europe's enterprises creating new jobs and business opportunities such as services for environmental data production and dissemination, as well as the space industry. The European Commission anticipates that Copernicus could generate a financial benefit of some €30 billion and create 50,000 jobs in Europe by 2030.

Dr Barry Fennell, Enterprise Ireland, National Delegate to ESA’s Earth Observation Board points to the numerous opportunities through which Ireland can benefit from the use of satellite derived data. He explains that “data collected from the Sentinels can, for example, be used to provide decision support tools for crop yield prediction for the agriculture sector; improve search and rescue operations and enhance maritime surveillance capabilities; provide emergency response mapping to aid civil defence and operational aid agencies in addition to providing damage assessment maps post disaster to the Insurance industry”.

Laura Burke, Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stated “The EPA welcomes commencement of the Copernicus programme as a major development in support of environmental protection from local to global scales. This is essential in the context of addressing global challenges, such as climate change, at local levels. We look forward to using the data from Sentinel 1, and the other Sentinel satellites in our on-going activities. The challenge is how to optimise the use of these data and the information contained so that the public and other stakeholders in Ireland can benefit from the opportunities it brings.”

To-date over €3.4 billion has been spent on the Copernicus programme and a further €3.8 billion will be committed to 2020, making it the world’s largest civil Earth Observation programme. Named after Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th Century astronomer, Ireland has contributed to the funding of Copernicus as member of the European Union. Sentinel-1 is the result of close collaboration between ESA, the European Commission, industry, service providers and data users. Designed and built by a consortium of around 60 companies led by Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space, it is an outstanding example of Europe’s technological excellence.

Background note for Editors

The Sentinel missions will have the following objectives:

· Sentinel 1 will provide all-weather, day and night radar imaging for land and ocean services.

· Sentinel 2 will provide high-resolution optical imaging for land services (e.g. imagery of vegetation, soil and water cover, inland waterways and coastal areas). Sentinel-2 will also provide information for emergency services.

· Sentinel 3 will provide ocean and global land monitoring services.

· Sentinel 4 will provide data for atmospheric composition monitoring.

· Sentinel 5 will also provide data for atmospheric composition monitoring.

· Sentinel 6 will sustain high precision ocean altimetry missions.

Each Sentinel satellite will collect vast amounts of data – Sentinel 1a will collect on average over 1.7 Terabytes of data per day. This data will provide for monitoring of European coastal waters to detect illegal activity; respond to oil spill incidents; provide rapid damage assessment maps in response to natural disasters such as severe storm and flood events and allow scientists to understand the effects of climate change on rising sea levels and global temperatures.

Using data from satellites and ground-based sensors Copernicus will provide timely and reliable added-value information and forecasting to support environmental monitoring, air pollution monitoring, maritime surveillance, maritime transport, agriculture and fisheries, land use and urban planning, forestry and forest fires, flooding and disaster response and border security. Services will be provided in six sectors: Marine monitoring, Atmosphere monitoring, Climate change monitoring, Land monitoring, Emergency management and Security.

Connections to companies in Ireland

TechWorks Marine secured, as lead coordinator, an ESA-funded contract to examine the expansion of Earth Observation data services for the renewable energy sector (2013). Downstream service domains include Offshore Wind Energy, Hydro Power, Solar Energy, Tidal and Wave Energy Biomass and provides future important collaborative opportunities with partners from Germany France, Sweden and Denmark. TechWorks Marine now employs 11 people.

Treemetrics, a Cork-based start-up company secured a follow on ESA contract to further develop its real time forestry management service by incorporating satellite communications and satellite imagery into its product / service offering. As a result of their latest space-related products the company has recently secured contracts in the UK, Sweden and Canada. In 2014 the company will ramp up international sales with the hiring of direct sales people in key target markets. As a result of the ESA contracts, Treemetrics has grown its employment from 10 to 15 people in the past year and is projecting additional employment of 25 within the next two years, targeting export markets over 11 new international territories.

A U.S. company based in Ireland with technology onboard Sentinel 1 is Microsemi Corporation which first came to Ennis in 1979 and received its first ESA qualification in 1993. Since then this element of the business has grown to such an extent that about 40% of the site’s business in now space related. The company now has products flying in many European space platforms including the Eurostar 2000 telecommunications satellite and the MetOp meterological research satellite.

According to Siobhan Dolan Clancy, Vice President Worldwide Business Development, Aerospace, Microsemi Corporation “Microsemi is excited to be part of the Sentinel missions and we look forward to seeing a successful launch of Sentinel 1. Through our facility in Ireland we have supplied several thousand space grade power discrete components worth several million dollars in revenue to many different subcontractors on this mission. As Europeans, our team here in Ennis are especially proud to support a key European Space Agency Programme such as Copernicus”.

For the latest news and information on this mission, visit

www.esa.int/Sentinel-1

Coverage

ESA’s Portal will cover the launch live, providing the videostream and updates of the launch at:

www.esa.int/esalive and www.livestream.com/eurospaceagency

ESA TV

In cooperation with Arianespace, ESA TV will provide broadcasters with live satellite relay or live videostream of the launch. Details at:

http://esatv.esa.int/Television

Several articles are also available explaining Sentinel, the mission and the technology. Find them at:

http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Sets/Sentinel-1_video_gallery

or at:

http://esatv.esa.int/Television

Still images

The latest high-resolution still images of Sentinel-1 can be found at:

- Multi-Media Gallery:

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/content/search?SearchText=sentinel-1&img=1

- ESA’s Photo Library for Professionals:

http://www.esa-photolibrary.com

Media image queries can be directed to spaceinimages@esa.int

About the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. It is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

ESA has 20 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Den-mark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, of whom 18 are Member States of the EU.

ESA has Cooperation Agreements with eight other Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement. ESA is also working with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes. By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities. Today, it launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space.