Copernicus

Copernicus - previously GMES - is the European initiative for Global Monitoring for Environment and Security. Copernicus is being implemented by the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) and aims to provide reliable and accurate environmental- and security-related information to the public and decision-makers.

GAF is one of the most experienced European service providers in the EU/ESA Copernicus Programme
GAF has performed more than 30 projects in all segments - space components and service components - covering the full value adding chain from data reception, data access and dissemination to operational applications. More than 45 of its permanent staff are currently involved in Copernicus/GMES projects - and have accumulated more than 135 person years of experience in the design, implementation and promotion of GMES/Copernicus products and services.

Involved from the very beginning
GAF’s direct involvement with Copernicus, formerly GMES, started as early as 1998, at the same time of the Baveno manifest - now GAF can bring to the project its long experience in the Copernicus thematic services, most prominently in “Land Monitoring” and “Emergency Management” but also covering “Atmosphere Monitoring” and “Marine Monitoring”. We are also involved in Copernicus support activities such as “User uptake” and “Research and Development”. In addition GAF receives and provides Oceansat data and is involved in the Copernicus Space Component Data Access & Warehouse as well as in the setup of the German collaborative ground segment.

EO for intelligent decision making
GAF is involved in operationalisation of EO based information services and in putting it to use for decision making through integration into Client’s business processes. GAF is driven by user pull and not by technology push.

In the forefront for innovation
The company is in the forefront of designing new information services from upcoming EO smallsat constellations at an operational level. Our discriminator is the integration of EO capacities into governmental, administrative and commercial business processes at national to supra-national scale. The utilisation of free and open data sources as provided by the European Sentinel constellation is a major part of GAF’s operational- and R&D work to design practical applications to Sentinel data, and particularly in the African context.