NOORDWIJK, Netherlands- ESA and Enterprise Ireland have signed an agreement that gives Ireland access to data from the Copernicus Sentinel satellites and helps Ireland to exploit these data to benefit their country. The agreement was signed on October 13 at ESA in the Netherlands just before the Copernicus Sentinel-5P launch event.

Copernicus , formerly known as Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), is an effort led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union (EU) to improve Earth observation. The space component of Copernicus will consist of a series of Sentinel Earth observation satellites.

While data from the Sentinel satellites and missions contributing to the Copernicus program are freely accessible for the Copernicus services, as well as to scientific and other users, the Collaborative Ground Segment Arrangement will facilitate Sentinel data exploitation in Ireland.

The agreement was signed by Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs, and Conor Sheehan from Enterprise Ireland and Irish Delegate to ESA, in the presence of John Halligan Ireland’s Minister of State for Training and Skills.

It had already been signed in Ireland by Gearoid Mooney, Enterprise Ireland’s Head of Research and Innovation.

The agreement not only guarantees that Ireland has access to data, but also ensures that ESA provides technical advice on setting up data acquisition and dissemination, and makes data processing and archiving software available to national initiatives.

With financing issues finally behind it, the Copernicus program has entered its operational phase. Satellites have begun to launch, and contracts continue to be signed to cover future spacecraft. In 2013, the EU committed to funding the program, and will continue to do so to maintain on-orbit coverage.

Source: ESA
Associated URL: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Ireland_signs_up_to_Copernicus_Sentinel_agreement
Author: B. Ostrove, Analyst