State-of-the-art satellite imagery are used to monitor the state of the forest in the Berchtesgaden National Park.

Read more about the FAMOS (Forest Application Monitoring System) project on www.bgland24.de (article in German).

GAF has presented the results of the project „European-wide Mobility, Safety and Efficiency Management for Logistics Enterprises” at the ESA Council in Paris. The solution aims at increasing the energy efficiency of logistics and transport service providers. The project has been conducted by GAF together with the partners T-Systems and DB Schenker and is co-funded by ESA as a demonstration project in the frame of the ARTES IAP programme.

The 20th anniversary of GAF’s engagement with Antrix was celebrated in 2016. This activity was meant to develop the European market for Indian Earth Observation data and it marked an important milestone for the company. Starting with Euromap, now as GAF branch Neustrelitz, and in co-operation with DLR-DFD, a remarkable success could be achieved by helping to bridge the data gap between the development and start of Copernicus services and the availability of operational Sentinel data.

As part of a Christmas initiative, GAF staff collected a proud sum for the OneDollarGlasses Association (EinDollarBrille e.V.). This amount was then doubled by the GAF management and a total of 4182€ was donated.

Worldwide, more than 150 million people are in need of glasses but cannot afford them. This means that they cannot learn, get jobs or care better for their families. This motivated the German teacher Martin Aufmuth to start the production of glasses in 2010 using materials costing less than one US dollar.

The Slovak Presidency of the Council of the EU has published a booklet with a collection of examples and ideas from different space-related stakeholders across Europe. GAF presents in an interview Earth observation and its benefits to the EU Member States and its citizens. The booklet can be downloaded here : http://www.eu2016.sk/data/documents/booklet-uptake.pdf

A European consortium coordinated by GAF AG has been selected to implement the research project “Evolution of Copernicus Land Services based on Sentinel data” (ECoLaSS) under the Horizon2020 Space call EO-3-2016. Focusing on Sentinel time series data, the project will explore innovative future Copernicus Land service products of the continental and global Land component and demonstrate pre-operational prototypes thereof.

GAF AG is pleased to announce the award of the “GMES and Africa Support Programme Technical Assistance Team” service contract by the European Commission. The services consist of the provision of support and consulting to the African Union Commission (AUC), which is coordinating the GMES & Africa initiative.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has recently contracted GAF AG and its international partners to implement the update of the Copernicus High Resolution Layers (HRLs) Imperviousness, Forest, Grassland, Water/Wetness and Small Woody Features in the frame of the continental component of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS).

Auf Einladung der nationalen Raumfahrt-Agentur (vertreten durch Herrn Dr. Gerd Gruppe, DLR - Vorstand) hat die GAF stellvertretend durch Herrn Fockelmann am diesjährigen 17. Bonner Raumfahrt-Abend teilgenommen. Vor einem ausgewählten Kreis von rund 200 Gästen wurde dabei im Rahmen einer moderierten Podiumsdiskussion das Thema satellitengestützte Erdbeobachtung und deren wirtschaftliches Potenzial diskutiert. Aktuelle Themen wie die ersten Ergebnisse und Entscheidungen vom ESA Ministerial Council in Luzern Anfang Dezember über SPACE 4.0 hinzu Copernicus Services und Sentinel-Datennutzung wurden hierbei aus einer kommerziellen Anwendungsperspektive heraus diskutiert.

Auf der Grundlage der langjährigen und breiten Projekterfahrung bei der Entwicklung und Etablierung des Copernicus Land Monitoring Services konnte ein Konsortium unter Federführung der GAF ein unter dem europäischen Forschungsprogramm Horizon 2020 gefördertes Projekt zur Weiterentwicklung der Copernicus-Landdienste gewinnen. Das Projekt “Evolution of Copernicus Land Services based on Sentinel data” (ECoLaSS) wird bis Ende 2019 neue operationelle Dienste und Methoden auf Basis von Sentineldaten konzipieren und innovative Dienste für die Nutzung in Europa wie auch weltweit entwickeln. Projektpartner sind dabei SIRS, Frankreich; Joanneum Research, Österreich; Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgien und das Deutsche Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum (DFD).