NEWS

On 22 June 2022, Generale di Brigata, Luca Baione, of the Stato Maggiore Aeronautica Militare Italiana visited the European Union Satellite Centre, headquartered in Torrejón de Ardoz.

 

The visit provided an opportunity to deepen understanding of the role, activities and capabilities of the Centre, and exchange information on the possibilities of cooperation. In the frame of SatCen’s 30th anniversary, Mr Louis Tillier, SatCen Deputy Director, discussed the historical background of the Centre, highlighting the big milestones and evolutions of the last three decades. In this breath, Mr Tillier discussed the array of users, and the Centre’s expertise in covering the full spectrum of European interests, from political planning and operational decision-making to supporting external action in missions and operations.

 

The Italian delegation was also briefed on SatCen’s core activity of geospatial analysis. Mr Marcello Morretti, Operations Manager, introduced SatCen’s comprehensive operational activity, highlighting the Centre’s analytical expertise from optical/SAR analysis and 3D modelling and simulation analysis to the different types of products and topics covered, among which monitoring of critical infrastructure, support to irregular migration, or environmental monitoring.

 

Ms Alessandra Ussorio, Deputy Head of the Copernicus Unit, discussed the importance and added value of capability development and cooperation for sustainable operations as well as service evolution. In this regard, Ms Ussorio made mention of SatCen’s strive in maximizing synergies through its cooperation with the Commission, Member States, and the Space, security and Defence industry (through cooperation with ESA or EDA). The shift from earth observation to proactive earth monitoring was also discussed, along with its benefits – from the identification of earthly trends to the anticipation of future behaviours.

 

Ms Ussorio was joined by her colleagues Mr Alexandre Arnal and Mr José María Cornejo in discussing the Copernicus SEA component and its future evolution towards climate security and development for resilience. In this context, various use cases were presented to illustrate the applications of the Copernicus SEA evolution along with the creation of thematic dashboards that allow for the enhancement of situational awareness at the regional level.

 

While on the topic of cooperation, Mr João Alves, Head of the SSA Unit, provided an overview of SST activities, where SatCen occupies the unique role of the EU SST Front Desk. Italy’s role as part of the EU SST consortium was presented along with the three operational services provided by EU SST: collision avoidance, fragmentation analysis and re-entry prediction.

 

The meeting concluded with a short visit to the Operations room, and a signature in SatCen’s Book of Honour.