2003

December 8, 2003

Supporting relief organisations in flooded areas of the Rhone valley, southern France

The German governmental disaster relief organization (THW) in Arles was equipped with satellite maps derived from high resolution IKONOS satellite images analyzed by ZKI. On December 4, 2003, the french civil protection agency triggered the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, which supports relief activities with satellite imagery on a best effort basis.

November 27, 2003

Merkur Online now presents the German Remote Sensing Data Center

Oberpfaffenhofen - The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is a place where scientists' dreams come true. The name of the idyllic village in the western district of Starnberg is not only a household name in space circles worldwide. In the current issue of Merkur Online, the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) is profiled. The special will soon be supplemented by an online forum in which questions can be put directly to DLR scientists. Finally, there will be a live chat with the German astronaut Ulrich Walter.

November 26, 2003

Bavaria in the fog

A high pressure situation prevailed over Central Europe on November 20, 2003, which is often accompanied by constant fog in the lowlands from November to February. The image was taken at 10.08 a.m. with the MODIS sensor from an altitude of approx. 800 km. The ground fog is clearly visible over the eastern Allgäu, the Danube lowlands and the Po Valley in Italy. The Alpine peaks are clear, as are large parts of the higher Alpine foothills, but many Alpine valleys on the southern side of the Alps are also covered with ground fog. A special feature in this image is the circular fog gap over the city of Munich, which is most likely caused by the typically several degrees higher air temperature in the urban area. This well-known effect of the increase in air temperature in the city center can be explained by increased waste heat (heating, traffic, industry), but also by the sealing of ground surfaces by buildings and roads and the associated higher heat storage capacity of the surfaces. In this case, the heat output was apparently sufficient to completely dissolve the already thinning veil of fog.

November 25, 2003

Successful technology transfer

At the Agritechnica trade fair 2003 in Hanover, Fritzmeier Umwelttechnik presented the MiniVegN system to experts for the first time. The innovative laser system measures the nitrogen content of crops without contact by stimulating the chlorophyll in the leaves to fluoresce. The detection of this characteristic "self-illumination" of the plant allows conclusions to be drawn about its nutrient supply or stress status. Thanks to the precise measurements, the fertilizer can be applied locally and in the exact quantity required. Based on the DLR-patented method, the DLR-IMF/ TU Munich-Weihenstephan/Fa. Fritzmeier consortium developed and tested several device prototypes in the years 1999-2002. The first commercial system presented at Agritechnica2003 was awarded the silver medal for innovative products by the German Agricultural Society (DLG).

November 20, 2003

Merkur Online presents DLR Oberpfaffenhofen

In an extensive series, Merkur Online, the online edition of the daily newspaper Münchner Merkur, is currently portraying the DLR site in Oberpfaffenhofen and its research activities. Episodes 1 and 2 deal with the topics of climate research and robotics. Episodes 3 and 4 present the Institute of High Frequency Technology and Radar Systems (HR) and the Institute of Remote Sensing Technology (IMF). All four episodes are already online, more will follow.

November 19, 2003

New national earth exploration mission after TerraSAR

Nine mission proposals received: The DLR call for proposals for a national Earth exploration mission achieved an impressively high level of participation with 9 proposals. This documents in a special way the interest of German Earth exploration users in using Earth exploration missions to satisfy the urgent information needs of the public, economic and scientific sectors.

November 3, 2003

ENVISAT/SCIAMACHY data service in near real time

The DLR/ESA SCIAMACHY service provides near real-time information on the distribution of atmospheric trace gases. The service is part of the ESA AO project EVIVA, and is available via the World Data Center for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere, WDC-RSAT, at DLR. The service offers higher quality data and information products, and the product portfolio is constantly being expanded through the use of advanced data assimilation methods. Please note that these are still preliminary products.

October 22, 2003

GOME data in near real time

On behalf of ESA, DLR's Antarctic station in O'Higgins is now providing GOME data in near real time. This enables the observation of the Antarctic ozone hole and its recovery this year. The German Antarctic Station is operated by DLR's German Remote Sensing Data Center. Daily composites of the total ozone distribution are available in near real-time via the World Data Center for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere.

September 24, 2003

Ozone hole over the Antarctic

This year's ozone hole again reached the record size of the year 2000, covering almost 30,000 square kilometers at the end of September, which corresponds to twice the area of the Antarctic continent and 114 times the area of Germany. The further development of the ozone hole can be followed in the World Data Center.

September 18, 2003

Hurricane Isabel

This image of Hurricane Isabel was provided by NASA. DLR also receives data from the American Terra satellite in Oberpfaffenhofen. However, the east coast of the USA is outside the visibility circle of the receiving system in Oberpfaffenhofen. For this reason, we offer you the data from NASA here.

September 15, 2003

Swirling clouds and Indian summer

With a pronounced cloud vortex over Germany, the low of the last few days has taken its leave to make way for an Indian summer high.

August 20, 2003

Level 3 Near Real Time data from EP/TOMS

Replacement for GOME data Due to the failure of the tape recorder on board ERS-2 the GOME NRT service is interrupted. Therefore the near real time ozone maps are calculated from the data of the NASA Earthprobe TOMS mission. The DLR Level 3 products are derived by applying spectral statistics techniques to the TOMS Level 2 data provided by NASA.

August 17, 2003

Devastating forest fires in central and southern Portugal

First damage assessment with IKONOS data At the beginning of August, the Portuguese "Servico Nacional de Bombeiros e Proteccao Civil" triggered the "International Charter on Space and Major Disasters". At the request of ESA, the German Remote Sensing Data Center took over the project management for this charter activation from Portugal and is coordinating the data transfer and analysis. In the 18 days of the charter activation, DFD delivered 52 satellite data products to the emergency services.

March 26, 2009

Colorful pictures with expressiveness: HyEurope 2003

DLR/HyVista hyperspectral campaign with the imaging spectrometers HyMap and ROSIS for current environmental issues in Europe. Since the beginning of June, the Applied Remote Sensing Cluster has been conducting a hyperspectral flight campaign in Germany, France and Spain in cooperation with the Australian company HyVista and DLR Flight Operations. The focus is on environmentally relevant applications such as water quality analyses of Bavarian lakes, the ecology of oyster beds in Brittany, measurement of CO2 emissions from factory chimneys or desertification phenomena in southern Spain. Imaging spectroscopy or hyperspectral remote sensing is a passive optical remote sensing method that has a wide range of applications in earth observation. The method provides quantitative surface parameters which are used in such diverse fields of application as agriculture and forestry, limnology and oceanography, geology and landscape ecology as well as urban planning.

June 27, 2003

Commissioning of the IKONOS receiving station on the DLR site

With the official commissioning of a new satellite receiving station on the DLR site, a window has opened that allows civilian users of satellite data a new view of the countries of Europe from space. Images from the American satellite "IKONOS" are received in Oberpfaffenhofen, whose images allow a resolution of up to one meter. The new form of collaboration was agreed in a cooperation agreement between DLR, the Munich-based company European Space Imaging (EUSI) and the Gesellschaft für Angewandte Fernerkundung (GAF).

April 11, 2003

World Data Center for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere

The "World Data Centre for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere" has launched its new website.

March 20, 2003

First cross-interferogram

The first cross-interferogram was created from images taken by the ENVISAT/ASAR and ERS-2 radar sensors. An interferogram is a relative (i.e. modulo 2π) phase measurement. The interferometric phase is composed of contributions from the topography and very small displacements of the Earth's surface as well as atmospheric influences. In the example shown, the phase measurement is dominated by the topography information. Each colour cycle from blue to red to yellow corresponds to a change in topography of about eight metres. Such a colour cycle is called a fringe. These fringes result from the coherent overlay of two radar images.

February 07, 2003

Erste Oceansat-1 Passagen empfangen

Our X-band ground station in Oberpfaffenhofen has successfully received the first passages from Oceansat-1 (OCM sensor). Regular reception of the passages over Europe is planned. The Indian satellite IRS-P4 (Oceansat-1) was launched from the Sriharikota launch site in 1999. It carries the OCM (Ocean Color Monitor) and MSMR (Multifrequency Scanning Microwave Radiometer) sensors, both of which are designed to observe biological and physical parameters of the oceans. The primary mission objective is to collect systematic data for oceanographic, atmospheric and coastal research programs. Oceansat-1 has a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 720 km, an orbital period of around 100 minutes and can completely cover the Earth in two days.

February 1, 2003

Tragic accident in manned spaceflight - DLR mourns with NASA and relatives of the STS-107 crew

The DLR Executive Board and staff were shocked and deeply saddened to hear the news of the crash of the space shuttle Columbia.

January 13, 2003

Cooperation agreement with EUSI for the receipt and distribution of IKONOS data

On January 7, DLR signed a partnership agreement with European Space Imaging EUSI and the Gesellschaft für Angewandte Fernerkundung GAF. A ground station for receiving IKONOS data is currently being set up at DFD in Oberpfaffenhofen. In addition, the IKONOS data from the EUSI archive will be made available via the DFD data library. GAF will contribute its experience in the use of the data and market development to the cooperation.