Send article to a friendPrint

International Charter Space and Major Disasters – on the way to operational full membership

International Charter Membership Visit of the Ground Station in Weilheim left to right: Alexander Semerikov (Roscosmos), Irina Samsonova (Roscosmos), Vasily Shvedov (Roscosmos), Satish Srivastava (CSA), Hendrik Zwenzner (DLR), Roberto Biasutti (ESA), Jens Danzeglocke (DLR), Thomas Gosdschan (DLR), Tobias Schneiderhan (DLR), Rynn Lamb (USGS), André Twele (DLR), Laurence Houpert (CNES), Stefan Voigt (DLR), Simon Jutz (ESA)

On March 1 and 2 representatives of the International Charter Space and Major Disasters paid a visit to DLR’s Earth Observation Center EOC. The purpose of their visit was to prepare the qualifying process which every new member must pass through before receiving the status of operational full member. The Charter is an international agreement between space agencies and satellite operators. Its members provide disaster management support through their space infrastructure in cases of major catastrophes. DLR joined the Charter as its 11th space agency in October 2010.

Operational charter duties are carried out at the EOC Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information ZKI. During their visit Charter representatives from the Canadian Space Agency CSA, the European Space Agency ESA, the USGS for the USA, the French space agency CNES and the Russian applicant ROSCOSMOS satisfied themselves about the state of preparations and were shown the DLR infrastructure and a demonstration of the future implementation of Charter functions.

In April 2011 the final qualification exercises will take place, in which future operational Charter functions as well as the communications and interaction processes within the Charter network will be gone through in simulated activities. These functions include the provision of satellite data, the role of the coordinating emergency on-call officer, the project management for activations, and rapid mapping.

DLR has been actively participating in the Charter since 2002 when the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information ZKI took over the project management for numerous Charter activations and also provided analysis and map products. Since the launch of TerraSAR-X, radar data has also been provided on a voluntary basis.