20 Years Of The
International Charter Space & Major Disasters
Space Assisting Disaster Victims
Initiated by CNES and ESA,
joined shortly thereafter by CSA (Canadian Space
Agency), the founding act of the International
Charter Space and Major Disasters was signed on
20 October 2000 and it was declared operational
on 1 November the same year. This unique example
of successful international cooperation today
combines and coordinates the Earth-observation
expertise and resources of its 17 member space
agencies. The charter aims to respond to
requests from emergency management agencies in
affected nations, local authorities, civil
protection agencies and the United Nations, for
which it provides satellite imagery of disaster
zones free of charge through priority tasking of
more than 60 satellites to get information as
quickly as possible to relief teams on the
ground. France’s SPOT and Pleiades satellites
are the spearhead of this initiative, having
proved their responsiveness and agility. In
recent years, some 40% of disaster maps have
been generated from Pleiades data.
Since entering service, the
charter has operated 24/7 and been activated 680
times (as of 19 October 2020, when it sprang
into action for flooding in Vietnam) in 126
countries. About half of these activations have
been in response to floods or submersion of
coastal areas, the other half in the aftermath
of storms, cyclones, earthquakes, fires,
volcanic eruptions, landslides, oil spills and
even industrial accidents like the explosions in
Beirut on 5 August 2020.
Thanks to the universal
access principle adopted in 2012, more than 60
nations have the ability to directly send
charter activation requests as authorized users.
At the same time, the charter is providing
training for new user nations. UNITAR/UNOSAT and
UNOOSA can submit requests for assistance on
behalf of unauthorized users. The charter has
also signed an agreement with Sentinel Asia, a
regional emergency response network providing
Earth-observation satellite data to 28 countries
in Southeast Asia. Consequently, every country
in the world now has access to the charter’s
services.
Governance of the charter
is assured on a rotating basis by its member
agencies. France has chaired the charter six
times since its inception, its latest term
running from October 2018 to April 2019.
In France, charter
activations are triggered by the civil
protection agency in tandem with the
Interministerial Crisis Management Operations
Centre (COGIC). The SERTIT regional image
processing and remote sensing service is the
French operator that produces rapid maps of
disaster-affected areas at CNES’s request from
70-cm-resolution Pleiades satellite data. It
processes satellite imagery in such a way that
maps are readily usable by institutions and
emergency services coordinating disaster
response. This service was activated during the
recent Storm Alex, which left a trail of
destruction in the Alpes-Maritimes region,
supplying disaster maps of the Vésubie and Roya
valleys as early as 5 October.
Pleiades is a French
very-high-resolution Earth-imaging satellite
system capable of acquiring sub-metric imagery
of any point on the globe in under 24 hours.
Consisting of two satellites in the same
694-kilometre orbit, the constellation delivers
dual-use imagery to civil and military users.
In addition to its great
agility, Pleiades’ key asset is an extremely
sensitive optical instrument that reduces the
exposure time needed for each image, giving each
satellite the ability to acquire up to 1,500
images a day.
As prime contractor for the
Pleiades system, CNES contracted with Airbus
Defence & Space to build the satellites and with
Thales Alenia Space for the optical instrument.
In Europe, programme partners Austria, Belgium,
Spain and Sweden were also involved in satellite
construction.
The strategy for smallsat
operators should be to partner with OEMs,
systems integrators and service providers,
including telemetry products that use other
forms of connectivity. By partnering with
service providers who already know the markets
well (e.g. agriculture), smallsat terminals can
be integrated into existing solutions to have a
“smallsat version” of a system.However, others, such as Swarm
Technologies, favor a direct to market approach.
It’s riskier, but can result in outsized
returns.