The European Space Agency (ESA) has entered into an agreement with Indra to host the main processing and archiving centre for the images of the Sentinel-2 mission.

The Sentinel satellites are part of the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, which will provide Europe with its own Earth observation capacity to address the needs of its users.

The processing and archiving centre will be set up at Indra’s facilities in San Fernando de Henares, Madrid, and will commence operations in September 2014, in conjunction with the launch of the Sentinel-2.

This centre may also be expanded to accommodate the data from another satellite, Sentinel-2B, which is scheduled for launch in 2016.

With a design lifetime of seven years, these satellites will capture high-resolution images in 13 bands in the visible and infrared part of the spectrum.

Under the new contract, Indra will undertake the entire management and operation of the centre such as processing of the images, and distribution to end-users.

The technology company will also be responsible for the long-term storage of the data, with up to 1,000TB of new images archived every year.

Indra will store information at its advanced data processing centre in San Fernando de Henares, which currently covers a surface area of 5,000m² and offers an uninterrupted service level of 99.98%.

In addition, the agreement will see Indra acting as manager and operator of the Sentinel-2 Processing and Archiving Centre, offering new customised services to its clients using any of the ESA’s Sentinel satellites.

With the help of the information extracted from the images, the company will deliver services to end-users in a variety of fields, including environment, agriculture, land use, emergencies, water management, forestry activity, among others.

Defence Technology