Public Administration
After the first three introductory sessions on the EU directive on the resilience of critical entities, the “Space 4 Critical Infrastructures” series turned towards its first thematic sessions. The webinar on “Public Administration” showcased how space can boost the preparedness of public administration in a number of threats and natural disasters that affect their critical infrastructure and the safety of their citizens. Representatives of EUSPA (the EU Agency for the Space Programme), SatCen (European Union Satellite Centre) as well as the example of a civil emergency case from the Puglia region highlighted how satellite applications can address security and safety needs.
Space assets and the critical infrastructure market
The critical infrastructure is a growing market with the telecommunication sector representing 84% of it, according to the report from EUSPA. Valeria Catalano, Market Development Officer at EUSPA gave an overview of the activities of the agency including the exploitation of EGNOS and Galileo, the market developments, and moreover the activities of GOVSATCOM (Governmental Satellite Communication), Copernicus, and SST (Space Surveillance and Tracking) programmes. Synergetic cooperation between all these programmes is fundamental for the smooth operation of space activities. In particular, she outlined that part of her market development activities concerns the critical infrastructure combined with the use of Earth Observation techniques in 3 market segments: i) infrastructure, ii) Energy and Raw materials, and iii) Insurance and Finance. A few challenges of these segments are referring to the higher data rates and, the robustness of interference. As a result, EUSPA is working to increase the resilience of infrastructure by using the accuracy of Galileo, and the deployment of the 5G telecommunications Network. EU-funded projects, such as ROOT, BroadGNSS, also contribute to the secure synchronisation of Telecom networks, and disaster recovery. In the framework of BroadGNSS, the request for tenders interested in public authorities is open until the 2nd of September.
The GOVSATCOM programme focuses on the optimisation of demand and supply to support security features and foster interoperability in three use case categories: i) crisis management, ii) surveillance, iii) key infrastructure. Within GOVSATCOM, the ENTRUSTED project aims at coordinating secure SatCom governmental users to better respond to the user requirements, and technology.
Gathering and analysing Users’ Needs
The SatCen Research, Technology Development and Innovation Unit has the objective to implement new operational solutions through a number of space projects. Moreover, they put a focus on how to support the operation and protection of the space and ground segments and find synergies between Galileo and EGNOS. In continuation of the previous presentation, Paula Saameno, RTDI Project Manager (SatCen) presented a few examples of how users can benefit from ongoing projects, such as ENTRUSTED, which respond to user needs and enhance operational services. In more detail, ENTRUSTED aims at developing a Research and Innovation Roadmap and identifying relevant user needs. The network of users are established within the consortium composed of composed of EU member states and EU entities and external collaborators (such as DG ECHO). In 2021, an EU User Consultation was carried out with over 450 users with a high interest coming from crisis management and key infrastructure operators. Finally, she outlined that a free/online training has been prepared in the framework of the project to facilitate the user uptake of future services.
Satellite monitoring supporting infrastructure building for soil defence
Moving on, Massimiliano Arcieri, Business Development Manager Government & Security SBU at Planetek Italia presented a civil emergency case from Asset, the Regional Strategic Agency for the Sustainable Development in the Italian region of Puglia about how the use of remote satellite sensing techniques can improve the monitoring of hydrological risk events. ASSET is responsible for urgent interventions, such as infrastructure consolidation. For this reason, they primarily focused on 16 sites with hydrological importance to apply Earth Observation techniques, to better monitor the ground motion and improve their civil protection and soil defence. Rheticus® is the platform developed by Planetek Italia to provide interferometric support for the study and monitoring of post-construction. The platform allows to rationalise the huge amount of data from all these sites and make it comprehensive for decision makers. Finally, the most challenging future task is to build a strong collaboration between different entities or even departments to aggregate best practices for the better use of data.
The fifth webinar on “Banking, financial market infrastructures” will take place on the 13th of September 10.00-11.00: https://www.eventbrite.fr/e/space-4-critical-infrastructure-banking-financial-market-infrastructures-tickets-380491870427
Please find below the recording and the presentations:
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGzkEzFva94
Please find below the recording and the presentations:
- GOVSATCOM and other space programme components, Valeria Catalano, EUSPA (link);
- Gathering and analysing Users’ Needs, Paula Saameno, RTDI Project Manager (SatCen) (link);
- Satellite monitoring supporting infrastructure building for soil defence, Massimiliano Arcieri, Business Development Manager Government & Security SBU at Planetek Italia (link).
