Description
The scope of the project is defined as the needed upgrades to the Santa Maria Azores Ground Station which enable Sentinel Data reception and archiving, coming from Copernicus Satellites. This ensures the provision of National territory with a Copernicus Collaborative Ground Station. Portuguese EEZ is one of the largest in Europe and therefore it is essential to have operational capabilities to perform regular monitoring activities. Sea pollution and maritime illegal activities, are issues that must be countered to ensure safety and security for national waters. There are different systems based on Satellite observation that might be deployed, enabling efficient responses these threats. It is important to provide National Authorities with the capacity to deploy mechanisms in a timely manner. This project will enable the Sentinel imagery reception in Near Real Time with high availability, creating enhancing the possibility for the development of National Space Based Monitoring services.
Summary of project results
The project was aimed at providing Portugal direct access to Sentinel satellites by acquiring Sentinel-1 data at Santa Maria Ground Station, located in Azores. This capacity was an enabler to perform Near Real Time (NRT) monitoring and surveillance activities within the Portuguese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), based on Copernicus. Results and Outputs : 1. Improve the ability to assess and predict the environmental status of marine and coastal waters 2. Improve the temporal, spatial and technological strategies for monitoring marine and coastal waters based on the defined indicators 3. The study of ecosystems, definition of Good Environmental Status (GES), recovery of functions and monitoring of resources and promotion and safeguarding of the environment and marine biodiversity 4. The intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth in the ocean and coastal areas (including the atmosphere), based on innovative and competitive solutions based on data and observation of ground services 5. Addressing global challenges as well as objectives relating to climate change and energy sustainability 6. The implementation of the national and European space policy The main output of the project was the redesign and upgrade of the Santa Maria Ground Station receiving equipment to acquire and process Sentinel-1 data. The output of the project was immediately exploited through the provision of oil spill and vessel detection services based on Sentinel-1. As of April 16th 2016, the Santa Maria Ground Station started Sentinel-1A operations, after successfully passed all tests with EMSA. Since this date, and only in 2016, 157 oil spill detection services based on Sentinel-1 were delivered by EDISOFT. The provision of services based on Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B satellites continued during the current year: 2017.
Summary of bilateral results