The overall goal of the TRACE project was to build a remote sensing based fully automated system for the detection and tracking of large marine litter and accumulation patches of smaller litter items in order to obtain precise and reliable data on floating macro-litter regarding their quantity, position, accumulation zones, material properties, floating depth, and sources. The tracking mechanism has been implemented by coupling the daily satellite-based detections with an oceanographic forecasting system and by a two-step object matching approach.

The objective of the proposed PNT Traffic Light project is to develop a continuous 24/7 performance monitoring tool for EGNOS/GNSS (and particularly for GPS, GALILEO and EGNOS) on the northern and arctic region of, at least, EGNOS coverage area. In addition to just EGNOS, the tool shall be designed to support assessment of the performance of also other GNSSs (at least GPS and Galileo).

Ocean Scan is the first inclusive labeled global marine plastic database, designed to benefit remote sensing researchers. Ocean Scan brings together global in-situ observations and their matching Earth Observation data in one place, and offers additional features specifically designed to benefit remote sensing researchers.

Commonly used classical cryptographic protocols, such as the RSA-protocol, rely on the hardness of computational problems. With the advent of quantum computing (QC), the hardness assumptions of these problems is nullified, since they can be solved efficiently on a QC. On the other hand, the security of Quantum key distribution (QKD) rests upon the very laws of physics and guarantees information-theoretic security, which not only enables tap-proof communication at present, but also prevents any future technology to crack encrypted messages.

There is an urgent need to assess the levels of plastic pollution in the ocean, to allow for future monitoring and determine the efficacy of any remediation put into force. As a consequence, parallel to in situ observations, there is a growing interest in detecting marine debris using remote sensing satellite and UAV imagery. The Marine Remote Sensing Group (MRSG) at the University of the Aegean is one of the few groups worldwide with in-deep experience in developing artificial plastic debris target structures, in different configurations and polymer composition.

Optical high-resolution payloads require very high structural and thermal stability to work at their top performance. Performing a thermal analysis and being able to perform De-Risk activities is surely critical for what concerns optical payloads which is a highly competitive market.

This activity investigates how mega-constellations can be used to provide low-Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft with broadband low-latency services, a novel Concept with potential to disrupt spacecraft design, operation, and performance by allowing spacecraft to access mega-constellations’ enormous resources (Tbit/s throughputs) and global coverage at a lower cost than traditional data relay systems and ground station networks (two to fifty times cheaper, that is, a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per month for a daily net capacity from hundredths of Gbit up to almost ten Tbit).

Intentional and unintentional electromagnetic transmission can interfere with various space-borne receiving systems. Generally, such occasions are called Radio Frequency Interferences (RFI). Reports of RFI problems can be found from many space application domains that use radio receiving systems: Satellite navigation services (such as the Galileo service), telecommunications, Earth Observation, or satellite telemetry, tracking and commanding services.

The project “Novel estimation of shallow water bathymetry using ICESat-2 laser altimetry, signal processing and machine learning and Sentinel-2 optical data in a highly automated approach” was funded under the European Space Agencies’ Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP). The overall objective was to build a self-calibrating and efficient bathymetry mapping system by leveraging accurate and consistent ICESat-2 laser altimeter data as a calibration source for high-resolution Copernicus Sentinel-2 based water depth retrievals.

This activity is intended to investigate the Grazing Angle (GA) Carrier Phase Altimetry (CaPA) using signals transmitted by the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The CaPA technique requires that the electromagnetic signal reflects coherently rather than in a diffuse regime. The hypothesis is that GA geometries enhance the likelihood of coherence scattering. It was also hypothesized that the combination of signals at slightly different frequency bands could expand the coherence conditions (widelane techniques, WL).