MCGS Centre of expertise producing information on the maritime sector

Within the context of the deployment of future European Sentinel space missions to observe the Earth, the European Space Agency (ESA) proposes to structure activities relating to receiving, processing, archiving and disseminating data transmitted by the Sentinel satellite around collaborative centres responsible for generic processing of data required for GMES* services, and around those responsible for processing more specialised data and offering complementary services.

The aim of the MCGS project is to define and set up a prototype centre of expertise that will produce data on the maritime sector. This collaborative centre, named the Marine Collaborative Ground Segment, will be developed around three platforms:

• A platform for the colour of the ocean, in the PACA region,
• A platform for the topography of the oceans (altimetry and radiometry), in the Midi-Pyrénées region, and
• A platform for wind/wave and current products, in the Brittany region.

Research on these different themes will enable operational services, targeting a wide community of private and institutional users, to be established, a prerequisite for the rapid growth of upstream service-sector markets associated with environmental surveillance and maritime security. The project will also make it possible to develop the VIGISAT station, ensuring it has the capacity to receive Sentinal missions, thereby securing its long-term position in Europe.

*The role of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is to supply validated, expert information in the environmental and security fields on a local to global scale, via operational services modelled on meteorological agencies' weather-forecasting services.