Indra leads the european G-Sextant earth observation project

The European Commission, through the Research Executive Agency (REA), has entrusted Indra with the G-SEXTANT R&D project aimed at developing different products and services that cover the geospatial information needs of the European External Action Service and of other users. This project includes an investment of more than €5.7 million and its development will last through the first quarter of 2015.

G-SEXTANT forms part of the European Copernicus programme (previously referred to as GMES, Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), one of the European Commission's most important initiatives in the space sector. Copernicus will enable the EU to observe the Earth in order to monitor the environment's evolution and to manage security and emergencies.

Indra leads the consortium comprised by companies, research centres and European organisations that are working on this project. The objective of G-SEXTANT is to develop pre-operation products and services for observing the Earth.

These products have been conceived to provide support in humanitarian crises, to monitor conflicts, to detect illegal crops, to provide border surveillance, etc. G-SEXTANT will also make it possible to improve existing products and services, and to develop a standardised solutions portfolio.

The new services and products will provide geospatial information to support the decision making efforts of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and of other European agencies and services.

In the development of the products, the consortium will analyse the specific needs of these users. Their opinions will be taken into consideration during the design and production phases in order to improve the end products. This makes it possible to combine the knowledge and experience of users, the industry, technological companies and the various research institutes involved.

G-SEXTANT works on the development and evolution of technologies that are not yet sufficiently mature to be used in real situations. Many of these technologies began to be developed as part of the G-MOSAIC project that preceded G-SEXTANT and in which Indra also participated. Once G-SEXTANT concludes, the aim is to achieve results that establish a foundation for undertaking the operational phase of the Copernicus programme for security applications.

These techniques are increasingly demanded throughout the world for monitoring natural phenomena and reacting to emergencies due to natural catastrophes, as well as for studying land use, forest operations, hydrology, or detecting spills in the ocean. Implementing these technologies results in significant cost savings and positive effects on the economies of countries due to the benefits and precision they provide.

By leading G-SEXTANT, Indra has positioned itself as an international reference in the development and use of technologies for observing the Earth. Within GMES, Indra has also participated in projects for defining urban, security and emergency, and land use products, and for supplying reference layers such as the Digital Terrain Model, water and grassland courses and layers (GMES Urban Services, BOSS4GMES, GEOLAND2, SAFER, G-MOSAIC, G-NEXT, Initial GMES Service for Geospatial Reference Data Access, GIO-Land and GIO-Emergency).

The G-SEXTANT consortium

The G-SEXTANT project is funded by the European Commission through the 7th Framework Programme. Indra coordinates the work carried out by the consortium, which is comprised by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the Joint Research Centre (JRC), of the European Commission, the European Union Satellite Centre (EU SatCen), of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the German Jülich research centre, the Geoinformatics Centre (Z-GIS), of the University of Salzburg, the Università degli Studi di Pavia in Italy, the German BICC conflict investigation institute, the Italian IAI international affairs institute, and the companies e-GEOS (Italy) and Eurosense and SpaceTec (Belgium). The French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is also involved.

Indra

Indra is the number one multinational consultancy and technology company in Spain and a leader in Europe and Latin America. Innovation is the cornerstone of its business and sustainability. The company has allocated more than €550 million to R&D&i in the last three years, making it one of the top companies in Europe in its sector in terms of investment. With sales approaching €3,000 million, nearly 60% of its income is from the international market. The company employs 42,000 professionals and has customers in 128 countries.