Dr. Peter Volk, in his capacity as Vice-Chairman of the GAF Supervisory Board, participated in the first workshop on the future of German space activities. The event took place at the DLR headquarters on 12th November 2018 and was initiated by Thomas Jarzombek, a member of Parliament and Federal Government Coordinator of German Aerospace Policy. The high-profile workshop discussed the opportunities and challenges for Germany’s space investments during the upcoming years. At the workshop, Peter Volk emphasised the importance of utilising new developments in the Earth observation downstream sector and the prominent role of industry stakeholders.

GAF, together with e-GEOS, has been awarded a Framework Contract by the European Union Satellite Centre for the provision of satellite-based digital elevation models to support the validation of innovative geospatial tools for SatCen’s exploitation activities. These digital elevation models have a resolution of between 0.5 m and 10 m and are generated using a highly automated multi-source production line. Additionally, the products are delivered with different quality- and traceability layers, and the corresponding metadata are adapted to the user’s requirements.

Dr. Bernd Schulte, Head of Geological and Mineral Resources Mapping at GAF, presented his paper “EO services and products for the mine life cycle” at the thematic conference Copernicus for Raw Materials: making the potential fully operational, which was held in Brussels on 12 November 2018. He also participated in a lively panel discussion emphasising the achievements already made using Copernicus data for the various steps of a mining project. Moreover, the full potential of Earth Observation has not yet been realised and various ideas for customisable products and services were therefore also presented.

GAF participated in the ISPRS Technical Commission 5 Education and Outreach Symposium, focusing on the motto “geospatial technology – pixel to people”, in the IPAC session on international cooperation focusing on EO for support of sustainable development and technical assistance, taking place in Dehradun/India from 20-23 November 2018, here ISRO Director Prakash Chauhan is thanking the panelists.

GAF has won the tender and been awarded the contract for a pilot project for the highly automated evaluation of satellite data for the monitoring of agricultural parcels. As part of the modernisation and simplification of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the funding period after 2020, new procedures and the use of innovative technologies are planned. Within this framework, machine learning procedures and neural networks will be used, together with a large volume of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and other suitable raster data (big data). This approach will be used for the evaluation and checking of crop types and agri-environmental and climate measures, and is intended to replace on-the-spot-checks (OTSC) in their present form in the long term.

GAF has been awarded a contract to upgrade and automate the Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office. The aim is to enable online applications, e-recording, archiving and the establishment of local offices in the six geographical zones of the country. This is the first sub-project launched within the Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification Project (MinDiver), which is financed by a World Bank credit from the International Development Association (IDA). The contract signing ceremony took place in Abuja, Nigeria in the presence of Abubakar Bawa Bwari, the Hon. Minister of Mines and Steels Development (MMSD), several directors of various ministerial departments and a number of officials from the World Bank. GAF was represented by Dr. Tobias Wever, Head of the Geology and Mines Section.

The first forum of the GMES & Africa Support Programme is a communication platform that encourages and promotes the exchanging of views among Earth Observation service providers and end-users at the grassroots level in Africa. The first forum is being co-organised by the African Union Commission and the Government of Gabon and will be held from 19th to 23rd November 2018 in Libreville, Gabon.

The theme of the first GMES and Africa Forum is “Unlocking the potential of Earth Observation as a key driver of Africa’s sustainable development”. Satellites are collecting huge volumes of high resolution images in real and/or near real time from space, and these have great potential to be utilised for different applications in the day-to-day activities of people in various sectors.

Brussels, 5th September 2018
The ECoLaSS international project team, which is under the leadership of GAF AG, gathered last week to present the progress made during the first 18-month project period to the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency (REA). Coordinated by Linda Moser (GAF, middle), ECoLaSS is developing, testing and prototypically demonstrating new technologies and products as candidates for a next-generation Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) from 2020 onwards. ECoLaSS brings together a group of renowned research and industry partners consisting of GAF (Germany), SIRS (France), UCL (Belgium), Joanneum Research (Austria) and DLR (Germany).

The Bangalore Space Exhibition (BSX), organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in association with Antrix and ISRO, took place on 6-8 September 2018. GAF’s Head of Data Reception Frithjof Barner and Head of Strategy and Vice Chairman Dr. Peter Volk were there and attended various meetings and sessions. These focused on international data distribution and the utilisation of Indian Earth Observation data. The picture shows Peter Volk presenting the potential for new developments and entrants specifically in terms of the Earth Observation downstream industry.

Together with European Space Imaging, Planet, Runder Tisch GIS e.V and our new partners T-Systems and Munich Re, we will provide a central point of contact for cross-system information about satellite data, geo-information and associated services.

The GAF key topics this year include our innovative Copernicus and service-on-demand solutions, and future developments in earth observation, 3D GIS and virtual reality.

Together with our partner T-Systems, we are proud to present the newly available cloud platform Mundi.

On Mundi, we also show the scope and historical classification of the drought in Europe in 2018 and, togehter with our partner Munich Re, present derived information services for the insurance industry.