Countdown begins to the next generation of satellites

Iridium NEXT is expected to begin launching in 2015 and to be fully operational in 2017.  Leading technology design and development firm Cambridge Consultants has been selected by Iridium Communications Inc. to play a key role in the deployment of Iridium NEXT, the company's second-generation satellite constellation and the world's most significant commercial space programme, which is expected to begin launching in early 2015.

Cambridge Consultants will spearhead subscriber equipment technology development for the constellation, which will cover the entire globe. It will also provide input into the broader satellite and ground infrastructure system design upon which Iridium NEXT is being built.

The Iridium network is the world's largest commercial satellite constellation. Covering the 90% of the Earth that cellular and terrestrial networks don't cover, Iridium is extending connectivity in places and ways never before imagined - from aircraft tracking in Alaska to the rescue of a trapped mountaineer in Antarctica.

Iridium enables two-way, real-time, low-latency voice and data communications services through small, reliable devices and applications that change the way organisations and people are able to operate and live. Building on a decade of innovative design and technology collaboration, Cambridge Consultants is contributing to the Iridium NEXT technology roadmap through its unique knowledge of the current system, as well as its experience in leading-edge mainstream wireless technologies.

The roadmap will provide Iridium customers with a new generation of feature enhancements and other product benefits as the Iridium NEXT project moves toward completion and beyond."The Iridium NEXT system will enable unmatched wireless connectivity for people in every corner of the globe and with such a significant undertaking comes a myriad of technology challenges," said Scott Smith, executive vice-president, Technology Development and Satellite Operations, at Iridium.

"It is uncommon in this industry to find such an effective long-term design partnership as the one we have with Cambridge Consultants, and we are pleased to have them as a part of the Iridium NEXT Mission Team that is collaborating to move this ambitious project from the design phase into reality."

With the preliminary design phase of Iridium NEXT satellites completed earlier this year, Cambridge Consultants is now embarking on the construction of prototype communications equipment that will be used to verify the design and performance of the Iridium NEXT system prior to the anticipated start of full construction in 2013. Iridium NEXT is expected to begin launching in 2015 and to be fully operational in 2017.

"We're proud of our long history with Iridium, and our input to the Iridium NEXT programme will help the company scale its business by maximising its return on investment in this next-generation satellite network," said Richard Traherne, head of the Wireless division at Cambridge Consultants.

"By applying knowledge acquired through our years of work with Iridium, we will ensure not only that the ground terminals and infrastructure for Iridium NEXT are effective, but that performance and user experience take a significant step forward and that flexibility is built in to enable exciting new features for future users."

With one of the largest independent wireless development teams in the world, Cambridge Consultants has a proven track record in implementing professional wireless systems based on standardised radio protocols such as GSM, WCDMA, LTE, TETRA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and DECT, as well as proprietary protocols developed for custom applications.

For further information visit: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Countdown_begins_to_the_next_generation_of_satellites_999.html

NASA-NOAA Satellite Reveals New Views of Earth at Night

 WASHINGTON -- Scientists unveiled today an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across the planet in greater detail than ever before.

Many satellites are equipped to look at Earth during the day, when they can observe our planet fully illuminated by the sun. With a new sensor onboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite launched last year, scientists now can observe Earth's atmosphere and surface during nighttime hours.

The new sensor, the day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), is sensitive enough to detect the nocturnal glow produced by Earth's atmosphere and the light from a single ship in the sea. Satellites in the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program have been making observations with low-light sensors for 40 years. But the VIIRS day-night band can better detect and resolve Earth's night lights. The new, higher resolution composite image of Earth at night was released at a news conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. This and other VIIRS day-night band images are providing researchers with valuable data for a wide variety of previously unseen or poorly seen events.

"For all the reasons that we need to see Earth during the day, we also need to see Earth at night," said Steve Miller, a researcher at NOAA's Colorado State University Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. "Unlike humans, the Earth never sleeps." The day-night band observed Hurricane Sandy, illuminated by moonlight, making landfall over New Jersey on the evening of Oct. 29. Night images showed the widespread power outages that left millions in darkness in the wake of the storm. With its night view, VIIRS is able to detect a more complete view of storms and other weather conditions, such as fog, that are difficult to discern with infrared, or thermal, sensors. Night is also when many types of clouds begin to form.

"The use of the day-night band by the National Weather Service is growing," said Mitch Goldberg, program scientist for NOAA's Joint Polar Satellite System. For example, the NOAA Weather Service's forecast office in Monterey, Calif., is now using VIIRS day-night band images to improve monitoring and forecasting of fog and low clouds for high air traffic coastal airports like San Francisco. According to Goldberg, VIIRS images were used on Nov. 26, the Monday after Thanksgiving, to map the dense fog in the San Francisco Bay area that resulted in flight delays and cancellations.

"It's like having three simultaneous low-light cameras operating at once and we pick the best of various cameras, depending on where we're looking in the scene," Miller said. The instrument can capture images on nights with or without moonlight, producing crisp views of Earth's atmosphere, land and ocean surfaces. "The night is nowhere as dark as we might think," Miller said. And with the VIIRS day-night band helping scientists to tease out information from human and natural sources of nighttime light, "we don't have to be in the dark anymore, either."

"The remarkable day-night band images from Suomi NPP have impressed the scientific community and exceeded our pre-launch expectations," said James Gleason, Suomi NPP project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

For further information visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/dec/HQ_12-422_Earth_at_night.html

GIS NEWS: MapSpeller, the Innovative ArcGIS Spell-Checker, Now Proofs in 11 Languages

-- Glen Allen, Virginia - The recently released version 4.0 of MapSpeller, the world's first GIS spell-checker, offers many new features including support for 11 languages, an unmatched level of integration with Arc Map, easier sharing of proofing resources and the extended ability to correct maps and GIS data geographically.  

Supported Languages

The supported languages are English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish. English is available in three cultures: Canadian, British and American; Portuguese is available in the Portuguese and Brazilian cultures. More languages are under consideration. The new Multilingual Edition is able to proof maps in multiple languages simultaneously. This is of great benefit when proofing maps containing words in multiple languages, as correctly spelled words in one language will not appear as errors in another language.  

Unmatched Arc Map IntegrationMapSpeller detects and corrects spelling and/or positional errors in an unmatched number of GIS objects, including map, layout and Geodatabase annotations, legends, dynamic text, scale objects, layer labels, and data-driven pages. MapSpeller also provides full support for Arc Map and XML format tags.  

On-the-Fly Geographic Proofing

The patented ability to spell-check geographically has been enhanced to support radius proofing of text in geographic coordinate systems by projecting it on the fly in memory. 

Easy Sharing of Dictionaries

Version 4.0 simplifies dictionary customization and sharing. It also supports a variety of dictionaries including system, personal, corporate and spatial dictionaries, Microsoft Office and Windows Mail personal dictionaries, as well as danger dictionaries (containing correctly spelled words to be flagged).  

About Edgetech America, Inc.

MapSpeller is developed by Edgetech America, Inc., a cutting-edge Esri Partner since 1995. Commercial services and technical support are provided in English and French.

For further information visit: http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?section=CorpNews&articleid=1143455

GIS NEWS: OGC and CRCSI working together to make data widely available

-- The Australian Cooperative Research Center for Spatial Information (CRCSI) has joined forces with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) through the signing of a memorandum of understanding. The relationship with OGC will be especially strong with the CRCSI’s Spatial Infrastructures research program.

“We’ll be using OGC and other open standards in our research to help direct development of the next generation of spatial infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand”, says Dr Geoff West, Science Director of the CRCSI’s Spatial Infrastructures research program.CRCSI input to the OGC will inform the direction of research for existing and new OGC standards. Dr West explained, “By using OGC standards, we ensure our research communicates directly with other systems.”

The agreement will leverage the collective expertise of many of the CRCSI’s partnering organisations to position research outputs for rapid utilization. Further to the linked research goals, CRCSI and OGC will share outreach and marketing materials to increase awareness of the increasing influential role of open standards in location based research. Joint activities may include introduction of interoperability requirements into the OGC consensus process, and the sponsorship/funding of CRCSI research interoperability and compliance testing requirements in OGC’s Interoperability Program testbed and pilot initiatives.

“We are particularly pleased with this new partnership. It will expand our reach internationally and accelerate the rate at which we learn about and contribute to international standards developments” says Peter Woodgate, CEO of the CRCSI.Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the OGC noted, “We are delighted to have CRCSI’s participation and leadership in the OGC international process.  The impact of research organisations like CRCSI in the OGC international process is significant.  Research organisations understand the power of open standards to support the rapid transition of research results into broad community application.  They also benefit by partnering with other OGC public and private sector members to cooperatively advance important research objectives. ”

About CRCSI

The Australian and New Zealand Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI) conducts research and development projects that involve collaboration between government, corporate and academic resources. CRCSI creates new wealth for its participants and the nation through innovative research and application and commercialization of spatial information technologies; through education; and through building collaborative partnerships. CRCSI currently has around 95 partner organisations.

About OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.

For further information visit: http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?section=CorpNews&articleid=1143128&printerfriendly=1

Climate Gateway to nowhere

The political reality of climate change has yet again failed to meet the need of the hour. The latest round of climate change negotiations (COP 18) that just concluded in Doha failed to come to grips with the gravity of nature’s warning and proved to be as inconsequential as had been feared. No real commitments pledged, no real finance delivered and, most importantly, no real leadership. The momentum in the climate talks which lost its way a few years ago at Copenhagen has failed to be reignited. This year at Doha the negotiations really seemed to be desperately searching for relevance.

The irony is that this fading global response is now totally out of sync with the increasing physical reality and urgency of a changing climate, which is constantly threatening nature’s status quo. The US East Coast is still reeling from the fury unleashed by Hurricane Sandy, while unprecedented floods were wreaking havoc in the Philippines as the global political actors huddled for more talks in the corridors of the climate meeting at Doha. Nature’s alarm bells could not influence the circus of political negotiations that are now increasingly getting divorced from reality.

The timid outcome of the two-week talks was a well-rehearsed final marathon session which culminated with the COP chairman rapidly hammering through a set of decisions termed “Doha Climate Gateway.” What is strikingly obvious from this document is that the two much-needed targets of raising the ambition of the climate polluting developed countries and of honouring their oft-repeated promise of delivering adequate climate finance to developing countries both remain missing.

Outside the negotiation rooms, however, climate change has forcibly dictated its own set of rules and costs. While the last three years of climate negotiations have fought over how, when, by whom and to whom the promised figure of $100 billion in climate change finance would be delivered, Hurricane Sandy alone billed the world’s largest climate polluter, and also the most obstinate negotiator, to a figure of $100 billion in damages. That is the irony of nature’s fury.

What the Doha meeting did manage to do was extend a last-minute lifeline to the Kyoto Protocol, which would have otherwise expired at the end of 2012. The 1997 Kyoto Treaty had obliged 35 developed countries to curb their carbon emissions by an average of at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the four-year period of 2008-2012. Even though the last few years saw the unceremonious exit of Russia, Japan and Canada from it, the Kyoto Protocol still survives as the only legally binding instrument in the climate arena and, backed primarily by promised deeper emission cuts from the EU and Australia, has now been extended by another elongated eight-year term.

This will allow carbon trading to further expand and use the markets to shift economic growth onto a low-carbon trajectory, particularly in developing countries where most of this growth is set to happen. The real credibility of this extension depends on the emissions targets that the developed countries voluntarily choose to take upon themselves. This essential element has been left open-ended, however, with more negotiations to happen in the coming year.

For further information visit: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-147895-Climate-Gateway-to-nowhere

US's Kyoto exit a big mistake: Former Obama government official

KOLKATA: Prof Robert RM Verchick, who recently served in the Obama administration as deputy associate administrator for policy at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), strongly believes America made a "big mistake" when it withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement signed by 191 countries in 1997 that set binding obligations on the industrialized countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.

"America pulling out of the Kyoto protocol was not just a big mistake in terms of global relations and moral obligations, it was also a lost business opportunity," said Verchick, who holds the Gauthier-St Martin Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University, New Orleans, and helped develop climate adaptation policy for the EPA and served on President Barack Obama's Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.

His comments come at a time when at the ongoing climate negotiations in Doha, Qatar, the US and Europe are opposing the idea that rich countries should pay for loss and damage caused by events linked to climate change in vulnerable areas across the globe. The professor feels the US should own up to the moral responsibility and use the opportunity in Doha to trash out a workable agreement on climate change.

Addressing students at the School of Oceanographic Studies in Jadavpur University, Verchick said he, and many other Americans, feel that the US cannot not shy away from the fact that it is responsible for much of the climate change challenges that the world faces today.

"Developed countries are historically responsible for climate change. They have created the problem but have the money and technology to fix it. It is the developing countries that will find it most difficult to cope with the challenge. One must remember that while North will suffer losses in terms of physical infrastructure, it is lives that will be lost in the South," he said, adding that while the concept of polluter pays is fine, differentiated responsibility has to be accepted since India and China could not be the same amount as US or Europe to clean up the environment.

While China is today the highest emitter of carbon dioxide at 7.03 billion tonne, the US follows at 5.46 billion tonne and India is third highest emitter at 1.74 billion tonne. The EU as a bloc emits 4.18 billion tonne. But both China and India point out that its per capita emission of CO2 is 7.2 tonne per annum and 1.6 tonne per annum respectively, much lower than 17.3 tonne per annum of US, 16 tonne per annum of Australia and 14.9 tonne per annum of Canada.

Verchick, who is in India since August to examine how cities - particularly Kolkata, Delhi, Surat and Gorakhpur - are preparing for climate change, said the cities appeared to lack holistic laws and policies to tackle with climate change induced disasters."Here, I have seen that there is progress in places with strong communities or leadership. It is extremely important to institutionalize this and ensure that the government responds to climate change. Surat seems to be responding as is Ahmedabad with climate change boards and physical as well as social vulnerability studies," he said.

Verchick, whose research focuses on law and policy, particularly issues of regulatory design, social vulnerability, and management of uncertainty and risk, said Kolkata, which was in the extremely vulnerable zone, needed to take into account climate projections and not historic data when planning infrastructure like roads, bridges, highways and dams. "India cannot afford to see the money pumped into infrastructure go waste in 20 years," he said.

For further information visit: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/17498446.cms?prtpage=1

American Scientist Suggested That Refreezing Arctic Could Help Deal With Climate Crisis

An American scientist David Keith, who is the professor of applied physics at Harvard University offered solution to global warming when he suggested that refreezing Arctic using certain modified jets could help in dealing with the climate crisis. The scientist used climate models for suggesting that by injecting the reflective particles in atmosphere, there could be a reduced amount of sunlight which reached the Earth. This in turn could help in tricking the regional effect which might bring back ice to Arctic.

He claimed that penetration of sunlight could be reduced by merely 0.5 percent for restoring the sea-ice surrounding North Pole. The research conducted by the scientist suggested that this entire operation was possible to accomplish with certain modified Gulfstream jets which could cost approximately 8 billion dollar annually.

It is important to note that overall amount of the ice in Arctic Ocean had reached all-time lowest in September 2012. However, while this scientist believed that action should definitely be taken for dealing with the pollution that was discharged in the atmosphere, he still doesn’t advocate action which his study suggested.

For further information visit: http://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/american-scientist-suggested-that-refreezing-arctic-could-help-deal-with-climate-crisis-1355386996-1