1. BIG data: EO innovation Europe LSI-VC#2, 20-22 Jul 2016, LA
Bianca Hoersch
Sentinel-2 and Contributing Missions Manager
ESA

2. ESA EO Ground Segment evolution strategy [September 2015]
The “big” questions:
how will EO data be used in 5 years and 10 years from now ?
how can Europe maximise the benefits on its public investments with EO satellites (e.g. in terms of knowledge/information creation, of socio-economic benefits) ?
How can ESA address the above questions within the ground segment(s) with the other EO stakeholders in Europe:
European Commission, in particular through a partnership with DG GROW
Public agencies in Europe (national space agencies, Eumetsat, others…)
Industry in Europe
ESA EO Ground Segment evolution strategy [September 2015]

3. The ESA EO Ground Segment evolution strategy
EO Ground Segment evolution strategy [ESA/PB-EO(2015)34, Sept. 2015] EO
outreach element =
Thematic value-adding
stimulating element
Remote sensing expertise
enabling element
Technical & economical interoperability
EO-Innovation Europe
Core Ground Segments ASI, CNES, DLR, UKSA, CSA
Core Ground Segment Eumetsat
Core Ground Segment industry
ESA Core Ground Segment
Copernicus Core Ground Segment
National missions
Meteo missions
Industry missions
ESA missions
Sentinel missions
data valorisation & discoverability
Heritage missions
The EO ground segment evolution strategy includes three parts:
Evolution of core ground segments
Heritage data
EO-Innovation Europe

4. What is an Exploitation Platform ?
An innovative operations concept: users access a work environment containing the data and resources required, as opposed to downloading and replicating the data ‘at home’.
 A scenario for data intensive exploitation gradually complementing the traditional operations concept for the ground segment
“Move User activities to the Data”
Exploitation platforms EO
software
ICT
resources
EO data
non-EO data
Exploitation platform (or community platform) =
Virtual open and collaborative environment
bringing together:
data centre (EO and non-EO data)
computing resources and hosted processing
collaborative tools (processing tools, data mining tools, user tools, …)
concurrent design and test bench functions
application shops and market place functionalities
communication tools (social network) and documentation
accounting tools to manage resource utilisation
Community
Collaboration

5. Examples of Exploitation Platforms  Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP)
 For scientific missions (e.g. Earth Explorers), a similar approach would allow a faster maturity of the mission processing algorithms (Mission Exploitation Platform - MEP)
 For commercial missions, a similar approach would allow an enlargement of their user base

6. EO Innovation Europe  a network of exploitation platforms
Heritage EO data
(e.g. Spot-1, Envisat)
Operational public EO data
(Sentinel, Meteo)
R&D EO data
(e.g. Earth Explorers, SWOT)
Commercial EO data
(e.g. Pleiades, TerraSAR-X)
Europe EO
Airborne & in-situ data
Network of exploitation platforms
“EO Innovation Europe”
“Big Data”
Users R&D remote sensing
Users profit-making services
Users geosciences
Users public services
5 interconnected user groups
General public, education, media
Objectives of the network concept:
Enabling large scale exploitation of EO data
Stimulating the innovation with EO data
Maximising impact of European EO assets and preserving European independence
How:
Interoperable/interconnected platforms around a core enabling element
Open to multi-source funding initiatives
Common governance rules

7. EO Innovation Europe  three elements
European EO data asset
Traditional data access: Data pull
Data push
New paradigm: data hosted processing
“Users (activities) to the Data ”
ESA missions data EO
outreach element =
Thematic expertise EO
enabling element =
Technical & economic interoperability EO
stimulating element =
Remote sensing expertise
EO-Innovation Europe
Copernicus missions data
Meteo missions data
National missions data
Commercial missions data
Heritage missions data
Airborne & in-situ data
Traditional data access (data pull, i.e. download, and data push, e.g. Eumetcast) to be gradually complemented by data hosted processing

8. EO Innovation Europe  the components of an exploitation platform
European EO data asset
Data hosted processing
Data pull
Data push EO
stimulating & outreach elements =
“value-adding layers” acting as a front office
EO-Innovation Europe
ESA missions data EO
enabling element =
“commodity layer” acting as a back office
Copernicus missions data
Meteo missions data
National missions data
The typical components of an exploitation platform
EO data tools
exploitation platform front end
common
enabling elements
Commercial missions data
Data
Processing power
Heritage missions data
Co-location of processing power & data is an asset
Airborne & in-situ data

9. EO Innovation Europe  an architectural framework
European EO data asset
Data hosted processing
EO-Innovation Europe
Data pull
Data push
EO stimulating & outreach elements
= “value-adding layers” acting as a front office
EO enabling element =
“commodity layer” acting as a back office
ESA missions data
Copernicus missions data
Mutualisation of efforts and investments
Stimulation of science & business
Meteo missions data
marketplaces
Data
Processing power
common enabling
elements
National missions data
Data
Processing power
Commercial missions data
Data
Processing power
Interoperability & re-use
Heritage missions data
Airborne & in-situ data
Network of (few) enabling infrastructures
The mutualisation in the enabling element will stimulate the existence of many platforms funded by different public and private entities in the outreach element

10. EO Innovation Europe  some current prototyping activities at ESA
European EO data asset
EO-Innovation Europe
Data pull
Data push EO
stimulating & outreach elements
= “value-adding layers”
EO enabling element
= “commodity layer”
ESA missions data
Federated identity management
Sentinel toolboxes
Copernicus missions data
Thematic Exp. Platforms
(TEPs)
Review of data licenses approach
EO Librarian (GSTP fund)
Meteo missions data
Technology Atm. Platform (GSTP fund)
Standardisation planning with OGC
VIRES Data visualisation
(TRP fund)
National missions data
Research & Service Support (G-POD)
ICT Testbed pathfinder (Poland)
Architecture study
Proba-V Mission Exp. Platform
Marketplace study (EARSC)
Commercial missions data
platform common
elements
Data
Processing power
Heritage missions data
Data
Processing power
Airborne & in-situ data
Data
Processing power

11. The licence challenge
Platforms bring together EO data from different missions/ data providers
Licences should be interoperable
Users should not be bothered with various licence documents
Hosted processing allows technical control of data usage and results download
Licences need to define clearly:
Allowed usage (view/ processing)
Ownership of processing results
Allowed download of processing results
Access to processing results for third parties (e.g. users’ customers)

12. Working on it
ESA, together with the European Commission (DG GROW), organises a one-day workshop on the potential harmonization of EO Data-as-a-Service licenses in Europe (October 2016).
Attendance planned by commercial and institutional EO data providers
Process:
Questionnaire to evaluate positions before workshop
Workshop to discuss use-cases and potential licence solutions
Follow-up workshop may be proposed to conclude on principles or licence “tool kit”

13.  coordinated programming lines
EO Innovation Europe
 coordinated programming lines
Common concept & partnership,
for synchronised programming, cooperative funding
EOEP-5 (EO Exploitation Platforms)
Heritage Data (LTDP+), Earthnet
National/commercial missions data access
Sentinel Collaborative Ground Segment
“EO Market Place”
Copernicus Data and Information Access Services
Open Science Cloud
GEOSS Common Infrastructure EU ….
Open to additional actors

14. Consequences for CEOS ARD definition document?
ARD as defined today in the document is one way of ‘easing’ access to data
…but not the only one
In Copernicus alone, there is a variety of what could be defined as ARD e.g.
atmospherically corrected products/tiles
Selection of best cloud-free orbits/orbit segments to compose a cloud-free coverage with the least number of products possible in any given time
Spatially and temporally resampled mono-mission products, e.g. monthly or seasonal mosaics
Spatially and temporally resampled multi-mission products, e.g. monthly or seasonal mosaics
Derived information e.g. leaf area index, water occurrence etc. etc.
…not all of those ‘ARD’ are necessarily produced by Space Agencies, also by Copernicus Services
 Platforms and hosted processing will allow a large variety and tailor-made use of EO data and derived information, at any ‘level’ required by the user community
Approach is explained in FDA document…