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The Centre participates in numerous projects in its role as an EU agency supporting European Security and Defence Policy. Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)
GMES is a joint initiative of the Commission and ESA launched in 1998 between European space actors (EC, ESA, national space agencies) and adopted by the ESA and the Council in June and November 2001 respectively. It represents a concerted effort to bring data and information providers together with users in order to increase mutual understanding and enhance the availability of environmental and security-related geospatial information for those who need it.
In that respect, GMES aims at providing, on a sustainable basis, reliable and timely geospatial services related to environment and security issues in support of public policy makers’ needs, by coordinating existing systems and producing services of continued guaranteed validity.
The Satellite Centre is the only CFSP and ESDP operational tool in the security related domain. It has been involved already in the reflections on the GMES Security Domain and is perceived as a key GMES European-level stake holder.
The EUSC participates in:
1) The High Level Space Policy Group.
2) The GMES Advisory Council (GAC).
3) The GMES Program Office (GPO) to contribute to the elaboration of the GMES policies, in particular those concerning the security domain of GMES.
4) Various projects related to the GMES security domain including CFSP / ESDP issues which contribute to the development of new pilot services at the Centre facilitating links with the EU industry in the space security projects.
5) GMES conferences such as “Integration of the New EU Member Countries into the GMES Programme”. This involvement is bringing along other factors from the second pillar, such as DG E VIII and the EUMS.
Global Monitoring for Security and Stability (GMOSS)
The EUSC continues to actively interface with the partners of the project and derive benefits and useful experiences from the different activities of the GMOSS project in security research, training, staff exchange, research workshops on civil security, sharing infrastructure and data, etc.
The GMOSS project presently concentrates its efforts in monitoring issue of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian disasters such as the one in Darfur and natural disasters such as created by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean as well as the earthquakes that took place in Iran and Kashmir. These activities focused on providing the geospatial infrastructure needed for a rapid humanitarian response.
Telecommunications Advanced Network for GMES Operations (TANGO)
The main technological innovations of the TANGO project are the use of Earth Observation (EO) data relay by the geostationary Artemis platform together with the integration of telecommunications services. The Centre will have a leading role in the maritime surveillance and evacuation scenarios that have been proposed. The use of the state of the art sensors in the maritime surveillance scenario such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) will benefit any maritime surveillance tasks of the Centre.
ASTRO+
The aim of ASTRO+ is to show the potential of using space-based assets to support Security operations, its objectives being to:
1) Demonstrate to Users the unique advantages of space in specific situations: non intrusive and legal, available everywhere at any time, robust and non-vulnerable to local threats. Propose a structured and effective access to the EU resources providing timely response to security.
2) Contribute to establish an R&T basis by networking Users, Institutions, Industry and Research, to enhance European competitiveness.
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