The European Commission signed an agreement on 28 February to transfer €624 million ($948 million) to the European Space Agency for its share of the European Union's Global Monitoring for Enviornment and Security (GMES) programme.
GMES will provide information from satellites to European, regional, national and local organisations for services related to land, sea and atmospheric monitoring, including emergency response and security.
The EC will pay the €624 million in two parts - €419 million for GMES' Segment One and €205 million for Segment Two. ESA's member states have already committed €758 million for Segment One and funding for Segment Two is to be agreed at the agency's ministerial council meeting in November.
Segment One and Two include the development and deployment of three GMES satellites: Sentinel-1, an all-weather, day/night radar imaging mission for land and ocean services Sentinel-2, a high-resolution optical imaging mission for land services and Sentinel-3, a global ocean and land monitoring mission that includes an altimetry instrument package.
"This marks a further step in the growing partnership process that sees ESA and the EC develop joint programmes," says ESA director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain, who signed the agreement with EC enterprise and industry director-general Heinz Zourek. "ESA will develop and deliver [the satellites for] the GMES services dedicated to environment and security."
As well as development and launch of the three Sentinels, the agreement enables ESA to set up related ground infrastructure for the reception, processing and dissemination of the satellites' data.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
