The current EUTELSAT 5 satellite is approaching its end of life and a C-band service will no longer be available from the 5° location. The follow-on service will be provided from EUTELSAT 8 West starting 1 May 2018The EUTELSAT 8W will be used for the new EUMETCast Africa Service, based on DVB-S2 to take advantage of the better spectral efficiency of the broadcast. That shift has implications: Antenna Size RequirementsContinental Africa will be almost completely covered, up to 99%, with 1.8 to 2.4 m antennas. The exceptions concerns extreme…

The Trans-African HydroMeteorological Observatory (TAHMO) hopes to expand the continent’s weather-watching capacity, transforms the culture of African climate observations and the capacity for scientific discovery, by deploying weather stations at every 30kmHow climate is changing in Africa? How diseases spread? What are the water needs and the water flows? How groundwater is recharged? What could be the immediate and long term effects of extreme weather/climatic events... Weather data are essential to answer many question connected to a…

A user guide that summarises  key information  required to enable both general users and technical  users to get information about marine altimetry products, from Sentinel-3 is made available online.The Marine User Handbook is produced by the EUMETSAT. The handbook describes available information on components of the altimetry system. It also discusses measurement techniques. The user Handbook is designed for current and potential users of Copernicus Marine Data Stream that are interested in the Sentinel-3 altimetry products for use in open…

Conservation, management and restoration of ecosystems and vegetated foreshores can help reduce the risk of coastal flooding and erosion. Free and open data from Copernicus helps to monitor vegetation characteristics, wave attenuation, sedimentation and erosion.Data and information from Copernicus Programme offer a unique opportunity to deploy operational services that support more sustainable and cost-effective mitigation strategies.One of the thematic priorities of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES &…

If 2017 has been a landmark year in the history of the Copernicus programme, more will come in 2018. In an Editorial published on 12/01/2018, Philippe Brunet, Director for Space Policy Copernicus and Defence at EC's DG GROW explains.The offer of products and services has dramatically increasedThere is now over 743 Copernicus information products – actio nable geoinformation and intelligence - that are available from Copernicus for the support of environmental security and policies. And there is six core Copernicus services impacting citizens…

AfriCultuRes (African Agricultural Systems with the Support of Remote Sensing) is the Horizon 2020 project that won a call on using Earth observation (EO) technology for improving food security in Africa.The Project receives a four years' funding under grant agreement. It officially started on the 1st of November 2017 but hold its first meeting on 23-24/11 in Addis Ababa – The Hilton Hotel. AfriCultuReS will deliver a broad range of climatic, production, biophysical and economic information, for various regions in Africa by applying geospatial…

ESA has partnered with Sentinel Hub to offer your business 1 year free and easy access to a wide range of EO data and 10 hours of support to help you build new services.Sentinel Hub is a simple and efficient way of archiving, processing and distributing satellite data using standard web services that can be easily integrated in any desktop, web or mobile mapping …