Welcome to the first edition (October 2023) of the newsletter from the PROTECT project that provides an update on the developments in the market regarding climate services based on Earth Observation (EO). The focus is on five application domains, namely: Energy & Utilities, Sustainable Urban Communities, Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use, Marine and Coastal Environments and Civil Security and Protection.

Market Updates

The following section provides updates on the current developments, news and evolution of the Earth observation market, particularly with regard to the evolution of climate services relevant for the public authorities in Europe.

Energy & Utilities

  • Open Cosmos announced plans for the launch of the MANTIS satellite, which will include a multispectral instrument and an edge computing unit, aimed at addressing the challenges of accessibility and periodicity in the energy and mining sector;
  • Overstory, which offers EO-based vegetation monitoring products for the utility sector, has closed a $14M Series A funding round;

Sustainable Urban Communities

  • Earth Observation firm SatelliteVu has released the first images from its HotSat-1 satellite, showing heat variations through the thermal infrared sensor, which is useful for mapping urban heat islands on a global scale;

Agriculture, Forestry and other Land use

  • Poland has signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) to launch its first constellation of satellites in 2027, which will be used to gather information to monitor and manage land use and agriculture within the country;
    CarbonFarm, a French startup, which offers an EO-based carbon measurement, reporting and verification platform for rice farming, raised a €2.5M seed round;

Marine and Coastal Environments

  • Thales Alenia Space, with a consortium of European companies, won a contract from ESA to build a proof of concept of Digital Twin with capabilities for flood inundation forecasting, coastal impacts and prediction of disasters;

Civil Security and Protection

  • OHB Digital Services, a subsidiary of the space group OHB, was awarded a contract worth €1.7M by the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) to lead the “Copernicus Demonstrators – Mobility, Emergency and Infrastructures” project;
    Planet has expanded contracts with existing customers across four Canadian provincial governments, to support disaster response operations;
    ESA is partnering with European synthetic aperture radar firm Iceye to participate in the Civil Security from Space Programme aimed at improving disaster and crisis management using space technologies;

Summary

The rapidly growing EO market provides opportunities for public authorities to leverage the insights gathered from satellites for mitigating and adapting to climate change. New satellites launched by the private sector from companies such as Open Cosmos and SatelliteVu are critical for monitoring energy production, deforestation and land use monitoring, water resource management, biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture. Investments from the public sector such as the Polish satellite constellation in the upstream segment, the Copernicus Demonstrator for OHB by EUSPA and the Digital Twin for Thales Alenia Space by ESA are crucial for improving the local capabilities to respond to climate change. The rapidly growing startup ecosystem through private funding such as the ones reported in this edition – Overstory and CarbonFarm –  are crucial solutions for both businesses and governments to benefit from the applications of EO.