December 1, 2015

Copernicus in Oberpfaffenhofen

Two representatives of the European Commission paid a visit to EOC on 26 November. Andreas Veispak, acting head of the “Space Data for Societal Challenges and Growth” unit, and Roland Zinzius, deputy head of the newly established “Financial Management of Space Programmes” unit, are responsible in the context of the Copernicus Programme for the further develop of the European earth observation system.

Left to right: Andreas Veispak (EU Commission, acting head of the “Space Data for Societal Challenges and Growth” unit), Dr. Hubert Reile (DLR, programme director, Space Research and Technology), Roland Zinzius (EU Commission, deputy head of the newly established “Financial Management of Space Programmes” unit)
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In addition to presently operating facilities at EOC like the Sentinel-1 Processing and Archiving Center (PAC), and to the future Sentinel-3 PAC, the European Commission is primarily interested in plans for the national exploitation of Copernicus data. Among other topics, information about the current “Big Data” activities of EOC was presented. In order to analyse large amounts of data, trouble-free, rapid and central access to the data collected by the Copernicus satellites is essential

EOC employees report on their work
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Andreas Veispak was impressed by these developments, especially the plans for a “Copernicus Center”. Distributed European centres of this type are a core idea in a strategy paper on an “Integrated European Ground Segment”, which the Copernicus office will bring up for discussion in the next few weeks.

Group image
Prof. Stefan Dech (director of DFD, 7th from right), Dr. Hubert Reile (DLR, DLR, programme director, Space Research and Technology, 6th from right), Andreas Veispak (EU Commission, acting head of the “Space Data for Societal Challenges and Growth” unit, 5th from right), Roland Zinzius (EU Commission, deputy head of the newly established “Financial Management of Space Programmes” unit, 3rd from right), Dr. K.-D. Rockwitz (DLR, Space Research and Technology program directorate with responsibilities for "Earth Observation" and "Communication & Navigation", 5th from left)
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