Holger Schlienkamp of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy was informed about the work of the Earth Observation Center before the DLR annual meeting. Mr Schlienkamp heads the sub-department of the ministry which deals with space affairs and in this function liaises with DLR. The ministry delegation was accompanied by the chair of the DLR executive board, Prof. Pascale Ehrenfreund.
The EOC scientists presented the national and international activities of the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI). They described how earth observation technologies can be used to supply humanitarian aid organizations with important information for managing large refugee camps.
At the German Satellite Data Archive (D-SDA) the delegation also heard about how the valuable environmental data collected by earth observation satellites is stored long-term, and what efforts are involved in this complex undertaking. “Even after a satellite mission ends, it must be assured that this irreplaceable information about our earth is safeguarded. This requires political commitment”, stressed Prof. Stefan Dech, director of the German Remote Sensing Data Center.
The DLR annual meeting was held this year at the EOC facilities in Oberpfaffenhofen. Many of the participants used the opportunity to learn about current earth observation topics first-hand.