The ORIGINAL consortium (OpeRatIonal Ground motion INsar Alliance) led by e-GEOS, a company set up by Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%), has been awarded the framework service contract of the European Environment Agency (EEA) for the implementation of the European Ground Motion Service (EGMS), a new service within the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS). The contract will have a duration of 4 years and a value of approximately 6 million euros.
The EGMS will provide detailed information on ground movement across almost the entire European continent thanks to the interferometric analysis carried out on the data generated by the Sentinel-1 radar satellites of the European Earth observation program Copernicus.
The service will be able to identify and monitor short and long-term ground movements, both caused by natural phenomena such as tectonics, land subsidence and landslides, as well as triggered by anthropogenic activities such as underground mining. At the same time, the EGMS will be able to detect critical movements of infrastructure such as bridges.
As is already the case with most Copernicus products, the data generated by EGMS will be accessible to citizens and organizations around the world via an easy-to-use user interface and will thus be able to provide crucial information to improve understanding of the risks associated with the movement of goods. soil on a local, regional and European scale.
ORIGINAL is a consortium that integrates the expertise in the field of radar interferometry of partners such as e-GEOS, the Norwegian Research Center (NORCE), the Italian TRE Altamira and the German GAF (a 100% e-GEOS company), and is supported by the German Space Agency DLR, the Geological Survey of Norway, the Dutch company PPO.LABS, the Hungarian Satellite Geodetic Observatory (SGO), the English company Earth Metrics and the Italian Nhazca, a spin-off of “Sapienza” University of Rome.
“ORIGINAL brings together unique skills, experiences and excellence in the European geoinformation landscape. This is a know-how that has been recognized by the EEA with the high score assigned in the tender phase. The EGMS service integrates Copernicus Land Monitoring services and confirms the fundamental role of the European program in providing services for the benefit of all European citizens ", declared Paolo Minciacchi, CEO of e-GEOS and Head of Telespazio's Geoinformation Business Line.
Leonardo and its subsidiaries and investee companies are historical partners of the Copernicus program, both in the field of developing some infrastructures and payloads, and for the management of various application services. e-GEOS, in particular, since 2012 leads the European consortium - also including GAF and Telespazio Iberica - which manages the Rapid Mapping service of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS), a service that provides maps and satellite information of importance worldwide essential in case of emergencies or disasters. Recently e-GEOS has signed a further contract with ESA for the continuation of the acquisition activity, for the whole of 2021, of the data of the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions through the Matera Space Center.
