Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and Africa has been installing equipment for more than two decades on the continent through the joint effort of the African Union (AU) and European Union Commissions to improve the sustainable development of Africa.

A great feat by GMES and Africa is the twelve new beneficiaries established across eleven African countries. These beneficiaries are about to receive GMES eStations, formerly known as MESA eStations, in the weeks to come.

These are recognized and established beneficiaries, principally North African countries of Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia, and other African countries including Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania, to serve their needs for quality environmental information. These beneficiaries are either leaders or partners in the 12 projects financed by GMES and Africa.

These eStations hosts the software developed and maintained by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) since 2009, which allows them to process earth observation data from Eumetsat (EUMETCast) and broadcast in C-band by the Eutelsat W8B satellite or via the Internet.

The contract was signed with Telespazio France in December 2020 and is progressing nominally. The stations have been integrated, tested, and were ready for delivery in January 2021 and were shipped despite the Covid19 constraints.  

The first installations will start shortly and will be accompanied by in-situ training of operators. These training are already scheduled in Tunisia and Morocco, with other nations to follow shortly.

The eStation

The eStation 2.0 is an Earth observation data processing system developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) in 2009. The eStation is designed to acquire automatically, process, visualize and analyze key environmental parameters derived from remote sensing data. Data are obtained from Earth Observation satellites, including; SPOT / PROBAV, SEVIRI / MSG, TERRA-AQUA / MODIS and Copernicus Sentinel 2 and 3.

EUMETCast

The EUMETCast multicast service transports a near-real-time data stream to the users’ receiving stations in a guaranteed time frame. This multicast stream is transmitted to the user via the EUMETCast Satellite networks (EUMETCast Europe and EUMETCast Africa) or the EUMETCast Terrestrial networks.

The multicast is transferred via a dedicated communications line from EUMETSAT to the uplink facility. The multicast is encoded into a DVB signal and transmitted to a geostationary telecommunications satellite for broadcast to the user receiving stations. 

A single user receiving station can receive all the data collections provided by EUMETCast, representing, depending on the EUMETCast service selected, over 350 collections per day.  

Telespazio

Telespazio is one of the world’s leading providers of satellite solutions and is at the forefront of many sectors: 

• Space systems design and development to launch services management and in-orbit satellite control, 
• Earth observation services to communications,
• Navigation and satellite tracking to scientific programs.

With nearly 60 years of experience, Telespazio operates in the field of services, operation, maintenance and installation of space-related facilities and ground systems, offering customized end-to-end solutions.

Its long experience and successful project references, particularly the African Monitoring of the Environment for Sustainable Development (AMESD) project and the MESA project, where 195 Eumetcast stations were designed and successfully deployed in Africa, are valuable asset for the GMES and Africa Program.