GMES Pre-Operational Services Supporting European External Actions
Proietti, Sergio¹; Lorenzon, Francesca¹; Palacio, Marino²; Romero, Rosana³; Hahmann, Thomas⁴; Schoepfer, Elisabeth^4
1e-GEOS SPA, ITALY; ²INDRA SISTEMAS S.A., SPAIN; ³INDRA INDRA SISTEMAS S.A., SPAIN; ⁴DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUER LUFT-UN RAUMFAHRT EV, GERMANY

The recent FP7 call on GMES Security – Support to EU External Actions (SPA.2012.1.1-03) appointed two projects, G-SEXTANT and G-NEXT that have started their activities on January 1st 2013. Main goal for both the projects is to provide value added geospatial products in supporting the European External Actions services.

Where the G-NEXT project will focus on pre-operational provision of a set of Services able to provide reliable support to the EU External Action service, G-SEXTANT will focus on the gaps identified in previous security projects by defining/consolidating new sets of services and products to respond to the user’s demands.

The research and development focus of the G-NEXT project will be on the enhancement of Crisis Management Response Services in rush and non-rush mode and in covering the relevant gaps identified in the perspective of a (pre-) operational approach aiming at:
(a) Demonstrate the effective contribution of an integrated geo-spatial service concept to respond to the needs in SEA user-driven scenarios providing the User Community with an evolving set of security service/products.
(b) Involve the main User organization in the GMES Security domain in the use of the provided services.
(c) Assure the continuity of the work done in previous GMES projects specifically on security and emergency domains.
(d) Implement synergies with the other GMES projects and initiatives (e.g. EU, ESA, EDA contexts) running in parallel with the project lifecycle.
(e) Perform a comprehensive benefits analysis taking into account the main drivers for the set up of an operational framework.
(f) Address the potential service evolution in the 2014 onwards perspective.

Reference Users for the G-NEXT services/products will include the main actors and stakeholders involved in the context of EU Missions and Operations in support to External Actions: European Union – EEAS (European External Action Service), National Institutions such as Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Defence, Police Offices, Intelligence Centres, and also international institutions as UN bodies.

Focusing on the gaps identified in previous security projects, the major objectives of G-SEXTANT are:
1) Preparation and delivery of pre-operational services in user-driven SEA (GMES Security working group in Support to External Actions) scenarios.
2) Further enhancement of already mature products and services demanded by the users.
3) To reach a standardized portfolio.

Demonstrations will be conducted in different scenarios to cover the potential application areas of interest identified by the SEA working group and mentioned in the respective EU FP7 Call: humanitarian crisis, natural resources, land conflict situation awareness, nuclear activities, monitoring of illicit crops and border monitoring outside the EU.

Data provision in the scope of ESA's GSC-DA:
The G-SEXTANT project will use new acquisition and archive data in standard (non-rush) delivery mode. Optical satellite data in MR1, HR1, VHR1 and VHR2 resolution and SAR data in VHR1 and VHR2 resolution will be used. In total EO data from 10 different Data Warehouse (DWH, DAP V2) Additional Data categories will be used to prepare information, dossiers and maps for the users within the project. The G-NEXT project will use new acquisition and archive data in rush and standard (non-rush) delivery mode. Optical satellite data in VHR1 and VHR2 resolution and SAR data in VHR1 and VHR2 resolution will be used. In total EO data from 16 different Data Warehouse (DWH, DAP V2) Additional Data categories will be used to prepare information, dossiers and maps for the users within the project.

Data from the following GCME's (GMES Contributing Missions) is expected to be analyzed in the scope of the two projects:
a) Optical satellite data: ALOS AVNIR2 and ALOS PRISM, Cartosat-1, EROS A and EROS B, FORMOSAT-2, GeoEye-1, IKONOS, IRS-1C/-1D, Quickbird, RapidEye, Resourcesat-1/-2, SPOT-4 and SPOT-5, WorldView-1 and WorldView-2;
b) SAR satellite data: COSMO-SkyMed, RADARSAT-2, and TerraSAR-X.

Most significant examples of products generated by the project teams and their effective and reliable integration in the user working environment will be presented at the Living Planet Symposium in September 2013.