THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION is, I hear on today’s news, ten years old. To be more precise, it is ten years to the day since a Russian Proton rocket hauled the Zarya module into orbit, followed some weeks later by the Unity module aboard the American shuttle flight STS-88. Two years later, humans moved in and have been there ever since, and the last couple of years have seen the station expand to accommodate a permanent crew of six, and a number of laboratories are beginning to do some useful work.

This is very expensive science, something in the region of $150 billion to date. And the respondents to interviews on today’s BBC World Service news were very vague about what useful science the ISS actually delivers, other than the opportunity to learn about the health effects of long periods living in near-zero gravity. Which kind of begs the question (‘manned space flight helps us to learn about manned space flight’).

I’ll admit it’s glamorous. For me, the Shuttle is particularly glamorous, the kind of thing I expect a real spacecraft to be like, rather than being shot into space in a can and coming back down under a parachute.

But Earth Observation is what we urgently need

In recent writing and public speaking, I have been drawing attention to how important computation is, coupled to environmental monitoring, for predicting the direction and scope of climate change and other environmental developments. A key role here is played by earth observation satellites such as the Jason-2 with its Ocean Surface Topography Mission, the ICESat LIDAR-based ice sheet mass observation system, the SeaWiFS instrument that measures ocean-surface chlorophyll, the twin GRACE gravity-mapping satellites ‘Tom’ and ‘Jerry’, and so on.

Other earth monitoring projects rely on distributed probes to collect data, whether they are tags on migrating whale sharks, instruments that measure water depth and quality in rivers and reservoirs, or buoys floating in the ocean, like the remarkable Argo System of 3,000 free-floating buoys that measure subsurface temperature and salinity and current flows in the depths of the world’s oceans. These too rely on satellites, in this case (a) to get a fix on their position and (b) to upload their data via the multifunction Argos satellite network which has been providing environmental data retrieval from surface monitoring platforms for 30 years.

GEOSS and GMES for efficient utilisation of data

Given the uncertainty and enormous risks which we now associate with environmental change, we need evidence-based policymaking. Therefore we need more and better quality earth observation data. But it has also become evident that making effective use of this data means bringing it into standard, shareable formats, and making it available ‘downstream’ to the research bodies, universities etc. who can perform analysis on it.

Recognition of this need led to the setting up of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), a collaboration between 74 member countries and 51 participating international organisations, currently three years into an ambitious ten-year programme.

The European Union contribution to GEOSS is GMES, ‘Global Monitoring for Environment and Security’, a joint initiative of the European Union and the European Space Agency, and formerly known as Kopernikus. The aim of GMES is to pull together information obtained from environmental observation satellites, aerial platforms and ground-based station so as get a comprehensice picture of the state of the Earth’s health. This has four components:

  • The space-based platforms and their supporting ground stations
  • Measurement platforms in situ (ground stations and aircraft)
  • Data harmonisation and standardisation
  • Systems for providing information services to users downstream.

GMES is currently working on three ‘Fast Track Services’ to utilise existing monitoring platforms: the Land FTS, the Ocean FTS, and a third that is dedicated to supporting emergency response to disasters. Atmosphere and Security will be the focus of future Fast Track Service developments.

However, GMES is also planning three space-based observation missions of its own, collectively known as the Sentinels. The first of these will provide microwave altimetry data, while Sentinels 2 and 3 will be platforms for multispectral optical surveillance.

Will Britain support GMES next week?

JONATHAN AMOS, writing on 19 November for BBC News, notes that UK support for GMES has been lukewarm. Three leading scientists have written to the Prime Minister urging that the British government pledge financial support for GMES at a meeting in Den Haag next week of the European Space Agency. The scientists are Professor Alan O’Neill of the National Centre for Earth Observation, Prof. Paul Monks (Leicester University Atmospheric Chemistry Research Group) and Prof. Shaun Quegan (Director of Sheffield University Centre for Earth Observation Science and the Centre for Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics).

Professor O’Neill, of the University of Reading, explained to the BBC that not only is support for GMES important in delivering on Britain’s commitment to being serious about climate change — a failure to deliver at least 100 million euros to the two billion required may also have an impact on Britain’s ability to participate in space commercially.

‘ If we are a downstream recipient of data, a third-party user, we will not be involved in influencing the agenda and the prioritisation for the instruments. Our industry will not be competing to build those instruments. And by not having close proximity to the actual data, we will lose first-mover advantage, not just in science but in downstream applications. So we’re either in the vanguard and mixing it, or gradually over time we will become third division.’

Unlike its major European partners in ESA, Britain does not have a dedicated Space Agency. The person who will deliver the UK government’s verdict on GMES next week will be Lord Drayson, the science minister, who recently stated that he hoped Britain would one day fund an astronaut in space. Get your priorities right, lad.

ESA Ministerial Council Agenda, 25–26 2008: Read this news release from the European Space Agency to understand the full range of European space initiatives that will be considered by the meeting of ‘space ministers’ from the 18 ESA Member States plus Canada. These include earth monitoring, the Galileo navigation system, data transport satellites, the Enhanced ExoMars project, further development of the Ariane 5 and Vega launchers and the Kourou launch site, participation in the International Space Station programme, and manned space flight projects.