On Friday 4th November 2016, ESA/ECSAT, Harwell, the Challenge Workshop on Polar Oberving took place. This was jointly run by Airbus, British Antartic Survey and CEOI.
In December 2016, ESA’s Council of Ministers sought to approve subscriptions for the Earth Observation Envelope Programme, period 5 (EOEP-5)
The EOEP-5 proposal contains a significant element dealing with the future of polar observations from space, and the UK Space Agency has identified this element as a potentially strong focus for the UK, which may be significant in business planning for the Council of Ministers.
This meeting drew together leading actors from the UK scientific, policy and operational user communities, and from the UK’s infrastructure development community, to provide guidance to the UK Space Agency. Its aims were to:
- Elaborate the importance of polar observations from space to science, policy & operations.
- Assess the gaps in current observations and the opportunities for complementary observations.
- Confirm the capabilities and interests in UK for the participation in the development & exploitation of polar observations under the ESA programme.
The meeting was introduced by UKSA (Beth Greenaway, Head of Earth Observation) and ESA (Maurice Borgeaud, Head of EO Science, Applications & Future Technologies Department).
| Workshop Content | Speaker | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Agenda | ||
| Introduction - Polar Observations: The UK Perspective (s) | Beth Greenway | UKSA |
| The Arctic - ESA Earth Observation Activities and ESA Task Force Roadmap | Maurice Borgeaud | ESA |
| Observational needs for Science | Andrew Shepherd | University of Leeds |
| Observational needs for Operations Slides 1-11 of Presentation Slides 12-19 of Presentation | Colin Grant & Peter Hausknecht | Earth-i |
| Observational needs for Policy | Henry Burgess | NERC Artic Office |
| Polar Synthesis | Andrew Fleming | British Antartic Survey |
| Upstream UK capabilities | Rob Scott | CEOI |
| Downstream UK capabilities | Samantha Lavendar | Pixalytics |