The first eocafe of the year 2021 provoked a great deal of interest with over 200 joining us in the virtual cafe to hear about the new European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA). It is fair to affirm that the (European) space community is eagerly awaiting the entrance of this new player and its influence in the future of the EU space programme activities, especially for Copernicus. Once the new European Space Legislation is adopted, the current European GNSS Agency (GSA) will be transformed into the EUSPA with its responsibilities extended beyond the current role of market development of EGNOS and Galileo:

• Fostering commercial use of Copernicus,
• Federating the user requirements for Govsatcom[1] and SST[2].
• Maximising synergies in the field of space innovation.
  

Fiammetta Diani, who is the Head of Market Development Department of the European GNSS Agency outlined what will be the role and mission of the new EUSPA according to the EU regulation proposal. In the EU space programme’s governance scheme, EUSPA’s role will be an umbrella European agency complementing other actors’ tasks with respect to downstream applications, focusing on creating synergies between EGNOS, Galileo, Copernicus, GOVSTACOM, and SSA programmes through transversal activities.

The ex-GSA will no longer be an agency dedicated to the EU GNSS (Galileo and EGNOS) programmes, but an agency aiming to foster synergies amongst the EU space programmes promoting the downstream/applications market development and user uptake sectors.

For the EO services community, EUSPA will focus on the enhancement of Copernicus data exploitation aiming to increase new users, new businesses and raise the competitiveness of the companies. In other words, EUSPA will be a user oriented operational agency. To do so, Fiammetta explained, their strategy is to focus more on the ‘other users’ who are researchers and non-governmental users but with a main focus on the private users while creating synergies across European space assets. Consequently, the challenge ahead is to identify the similarities and differences of the EU GNSS and Copernicus users.

Fiammetta acknowledged that although the EO and Galileo value chains are different, to achieve this goal relies on the building of a good knowledge of the user and the market. For this purpose, GSA has based this knowledge in the Galileo experience through the issuing of (six) biennial market reports[3] focused on the technology and market segments research, identifying the user communities and needs in the field of navigation. Along with this, the Horizon2020 programme has served as a key tool to develop specific products for later commercializing them.

While undertaking this market monitoring GSA has identified convergent sectors where Copernicus and Galileo have common users and sectors where these lacks of presence. For example, the transport sector is a prominent market of Galileo where Copernicus is less present, on the other hand, in the environmental sector, Copernicus is leading and Galileo lacks presence. Yet, she points out the agricultural, maritime and forestry sectors synergies are more natural to be developed.

According to Justyna Redelkiewicz, Head of Sector LBS, Market & Technology with GSA, as part of the preparatory work of EUSPA, the Agency has already prepared a ‘consolidation market monitoring report’ considering how to address the relevant markets for GNSS and Copernicus in a coherent manner. This report is planned to be released in the first quarter of 2021. Justyna mentioned several Copernicus’ market reports were used in its formulation such as EARSC reports[4], and raised a call to the industry users for input. Furthermore, Justyna mentioned that this kind of effort is important to assist the EO industry by generating accessible information on market projections.

Although Galileo and Copernicus provide different services, similarities in its users have been identified according to Eduard Escalona Zorita, Market Development Innovation Officer with European GNSS Agency. Raising awareness, however, is desired for both the Galileo and Copernicus communities sending the message that both programmes can offer a complementary solution to users. Three categories of market have been identified:

• Those sectors which are relevant for GNSS alone e.g aviation
• Those sectors which are relevant for Copernicus alone e.g climate change
• Those sectors which are important for both technologies; agriculture and urban have been cited as examples.

In this last category, synergies between the two technologies are more likely.

Finally, regarding other mechanisms, the new EUSPA encourages the industry to approach its application specialists to assist them in their business projects and also to be attentive to the incoming Horizon Europe calls to be launched this year. EUSPA acceleration programmes are also contemplated. An Entrepreneur Day will be announced very soon to assist for example in matchmaking and developing new EO ideas.

Whilst waiting for the EUSPA to take shape in its expanded role, it is clear that identifying  synergies is one of its main and most challenging objectives to fulfil in this incoming era of the EU space programme. Technology readiness and users’ skills remain paramount factors to consider in order  to succeed in these synergies development. EARSC has a number of projects [5] which can complement EUSPA actions and looks forward to working with EUSPA in such an integrated view of the Copernicus-Galileo future ecosystem where the user is placed in first place by focusing also on the users of the EO private sector.

Sandra Cabrera Alvarado, Aaron Scorsa, Geoff Sawyer

[1] https://www.gsa.europa.eu/govsatcom

[2] https://www.satcen.europa.eu/page/ssa

[3] More information about it may be found here: https://www.gsa.europa.eu/market/market-report and https://www.gsa.europa.eu/european-gnss/gnss-market/gnss-user-technology-report

[4] EARSC Taxonomy report

[5] Some EARSC projects information can be found:  FIRE fire-forum.eu  PARSEC Accelerator parsec-accelerator.eu e-shape  e-shape.eu

I think we are all breathing a sigh of relief that the difficult year 2020 is over and look forward to a better 2021. As the Covid pandemic broke last March, many companies found themselves faced with stringent lockdown measures and the need to rapidly reorganise their production as staff were forced to work from home. At EARSC, we believe that we adapted quite well despite early fears and were fortunate to have a number of long term contracts from ESA and the EC which gave us stability.

Overall, as a sector, we were let-off relatively lightly – at least so far. Unlike retail or even worse entertainment sectors, companies in the EO services sector were mostly able to adapt to a regime of home working relatively smoothly. Most business is done through fixed duration contracts which meant that the initial impact was more on the staff than the business. Some companies even told us about increased business linked to customers seeking a better understanding of the Covid situation.

Now, 9 months on, we hope that the business situation is still relatively benign. A number of companies have expressed concern that their commercial business will dry up, but this will be very sector dependent if it happens. We hope to find out more through our next industry survey which has just been launched. Initially, we updated the analysis of the sector performance every 2 years but, we were asked by ESA if we could provide annual figures and, the survey results published last June were the first of the annual releases.

If you are running a company offering EO services and based in a European country, then it is likely you have a request mail from us to fill it in. If you, or a colleague, have not received the invitation please let us know as well shall be delighted to add you into our list. Currently, we have around 700 companies in our database each of which should have received the mail. This is already quite a steep increase from last year and it looks as though there have been many new companies formed or entering the sector.

This latter point is a trend that I have particularly noticed. I have come across quite a number of new companies which offer services unrelated to satellite data, but which have started to include satellite-derived products in their offers. This is great news and certainly represents a maturing of the sector. In recognition, we have tweaked our survey a little to distinguish these companies from those whose core business is offering services based on the analysis of EO data. Hopefully, we shall be able to extract that information from the survey results.

The survey is extremely important for the European institutional stakeholders. It is by far the most comprehensive survey carried out in the sector and provides valuable information for policy makers. It helps us as a trade association to formulate the views of the industry and to seek to maximise the opportunities for the sector. Our goal is always to seek to help you win new business and develop your company.

Our last survey, published in the summer, has been used by both ESA and the EC to help shape their new programmes; ESA through the ministerial and the EC for the new financial budget period 2021 to 2027. Further activities are planned under Copernicus, linked to GEO and to support SME’s to build their business in Europe.

This year, the survey is divided into two. The first part is classical and is directed at all companies with a maturity of 5 years or more. As well as the core questions on your employees, your revenues and the nature of the market in which you are working, we have also a number of questions linked to Copernicus, and your views on its development.

The second survey is being sent to all newer companies which are 5 years old or less. We wish to build a picture of how you have been formed and grown so, as well as the same core questions, there are others more directed at your origins and issues that you have faced to get going. The answers will help us shape future support activities like those we have been running under the PARSEC accelerator scheme. We have also been able to bring some new industrial partners into the e-shape project and have more schemes like these in prospect.

Please do take the time to respond and do not hesitate to contact us if you have not received an invitation to complete the survey or you have any questions.