Impressions collected during the evaluation.From left to right: Dr. R. Haydn, Prof. P. Hoppe, Dr. G. Kohlhammer, Dr. W. Lengert, Dr. H. Reile (DLR-PD-W),Dr. Hans Windauer, Prof. J. Bogardi, Dr. E. Attema, Prof. R. Bamler (DLR-IMF),Prof. M. Schardt, Prof. S. Dech (DLR-DFD),Prof. K. Itten; Further evaluators: Prof. H.-B. Bähr, Prof. H. Graßl, Dr. K. Heller, Dr. F. Merkle.
On the first day the evaluators toured the facilities of the Remote Sensing Technology Institute and the German Remote Sensing Data Center and were informed by the staff about the work being carried out there in general. On January 24 there were presentations in more depth taking the form of a public colloquium with both overall assessments and more specific technical reports.
At the end the evaluators presented their conclusions. With its combination, unique in Europe, of methodology and processor development, plus an expertise in ground segment design, information management and operations which has matured over many years, the cluster can be regarded as a “Center of Excellence.” It is predestined to function as a European operations and applications center for GMES. Its imminent participation in the national missions TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and EnMap will, according to the evaluators, put the cluster along with other DLR institutes and partner organizations in a key position in earth observation also on the international level.