4th International Conference - Earth from Space

Representatives from 270 organizations of 27 countries took part in the conference.

2009 Conference Program was highly topical – the following events took place in addition to plenary sessions and thematic sections:

• 2 workshops and 6 master-classes dedicated to data processing software tools and technology;
• “Space data” master-class; Master-classes of world leading Operators:
• GeoEye, e-Geos, Infoterra; “Earth from Space” association founder’s meeting;
• “Web&GIS” mini-conference;
• Training courses on spatial data processing and thematic interpretation;
• Exhibition of Earth remote sensing technology innovations and services.

The first day of the conference was dedicated to large national and regional projects using satellite-based data and technology. Representatives of governmental structures – Russian Federal Space Agency, National Aerospace Agency of Azerbaijan, State Non-Financial Organization “Center of Geodesy and Gartography” (Armenia), as well as representatives of business community – ScanEx Research & Development Center (Russia) and Geosystems Polska Ltd. (Poland).

In the course of the “Region management” plenary session the discussions took place on the issues related to the application of space information for solving tasks of regional economy, for mobilization of revenues related to land tax, land lease and sales into local budgets, for management of land and property of the Russian Railways; issues concerning the use of space imagery, when carrying out major cartographic projects, as well as issues of creating regional centers of monitoring from space based on universities as a tool to resolve certain decision-making tasks.

World largest Operators spoke about the specifics of current space programs operations and about future launches within the frames of the “Programs of Earth observation from space” plenary session.

Conference participants listened to the reports of the representatives of optical imagery programs’ Operators: ImageSat International N.V. (EROS A/B series of very high resolution satellites, Israel), Spot Image S.A. about the future program of the Pleiades satellites’ constellation (France). GeoEye (USA) company representative talked about the results of first 10 months of commercial operations of the GeoEye-1 satellite; Hitachi Software Engineering Co. – about a pair of VHR satellites – WorldView-1 and WorldView-2.

Presentation of the Geoinformatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) from Thailand about the first year of THEOS satellite operation was a novelty. CosmoSkyMed, TerraSAR-X and RADARSAT-2 radar imaging programs were described by e-GEOS (Italy), Infoterra GmbH (Germany) and MDA (Canada) Operators respectively. The last report within the frames of the plenary session “Satellite-based methods of maritime monitoring” was delivered on December 2.

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