Worth a thread – perhaps. http://www.spatialsource.com.au/2015/06/23/csiro-signs-cooperative-agreement-with-esa/

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have signed an agreement which will give Australia better access to information from Europe’s Earth-observing satellites, while ESA will benefit from Australia’s scientific expertise.

Signed at the Paris Air & Space Show last week, the agreement focuses on the collaboration between Australian and European researchers in the evaluation of satellite data for use in Australia, while jointly developing new applications and space technologies for future satellites.

Thats good news

Any chance of a launch pad?

while ESA will benefit from Australia’s scientific expertise.

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So we are ahead of the Euros in science?

Apparently Stephen Fry was a cocaine addict for 20 years.

Sorry, that was meant for chat.

tauto said:

while ESA will benefit from Australia’s scientific expertise.
—-
So we are ahead of the Euros in science?

In some areas. Not in others. Australians, per capita, are probably bigger uses of satellite imagery than Europeans.

I’d say that Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute is at least as good as CSIRO in many areas. France has its Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). There are perhaps one or two other organisations in Europe that can match or surpass CSIRO. But nothing in the UK comes close to being as good, ditto in most other European countries.

CrazyNeutrino said:

Thats good news

Any chance of a launch pad?

Best locations are near equator (utilising the spin of the Earth), high altitude (overcoming atmospheric drag resistance), and east coast (safest for rockets exploding after take-off). Choose two out of the three because nowhere on Earth seems to have all three. As regards launch pads, it’s a shame that we haven’t negotiated with New Guinea for an Australian one, in the same way that France has negotiated with French Guiana (in Latin America).

Sorry, this is off topic, but it is about ESA. There’s a youtube video about the GAIA spacecraft 16 months after launch on this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBlV7NSIUg0

mollwollfumble said:

tauto said:

while ESA will benefit from Australia’s scientific expertise.
—-
So we are ahead of the Euros in science?

In some areas. Not in others. Australians, per capita, are probably bigger uses of satellite imagery than Europeans.

I’d say that Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute is at least as good as CSIRO in many areas. France has its Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). There are perhaps one or two other organisations in Europe that can match or surpass CSIRO. But nothing in the UK comes close to being as good, ditto in most other European countries.

As an example of how CSIRO science could benefit ESA, one of my former colleagues was originally hired to work on corrosion, that led to Raman_spectroscopy and from that recently to work using Hyperspectral_imaging

Hyperspectral imaging is THE tool of preference for earth observation satellites. It is also installed on the New Horizons spacecraft. By way of contrast, arguably (I can explain why if you ask) the most successful tool onboard any satellite in the history of spaceflight is MODIS. But MODIS only uses multi-spectral imaging – hyperspectral imaging would be better. My colleague could help.