MARSAT – Satellite Services for the maritime industry

“MARSAT is an ambitious project, which brings together competence of specialists in satellite data provision and analysis, IT and the maritime industry. This team will lay the ground for improved decision making for shipping route optimization, offshore planning and maintenance as well as emergency events”, said Dr. Knut Hartmann, Project Coordinator MARSAT, EOMAP GmbH & Co KG

MARSAT is a consortium of six German companies, EOMAP GmbH & Co KG, Drift & Noise Polar Services GmbH, European Space Imaging GmbH, Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics (ISL), SevenCs GmbH, TRENZ AG, and is funded by BMWi, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The kick-off meeting was successfully held at the end of August 2016 at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Space Administration in Bonn, Germany and marked the starting point of this 2.5 year project.

“The use of satellite data and Earth Observation products in the maritime world has an enormous potential. We are at the very beginning, just starting to get a glimpse at the possibilities and huge benefits these innovative technologies will offer.” Dr. Nils Meyer-Larsen, Project Manager, ISL

The technical goals of MARSAT are to create and integrate operational services to allow the maritime industry to take advantage of the most up-to-date satellite information in their day-to-day work. This requires setting up an efficient IT infrastructure to share, integrate and implement satellite-derived data quickly and efficiently from various satellite sources. Services such as ice detection and drift, obstruction and bathymetry mapping will be integrated in maritime information systems so that, e.g., shipping routes can be optimized, up-to date information made available for rescue or emergency events, and base data provided for environmental and coastal use cases within user friendly applications.

“European Space Imaging believes in the potential of the Earth Observation industry to offer integrated, more user-friendly and sustainable services to the maritime industry. By uniting satellite-based information services into existing maritime information structures we will create better services and provide more safety in the industry,” says Adrian Zevenbergen, Managing Director, European Space, Imaging.

MARSAT is a dynamic and steadily growing network of data suppliers, users and academia, and cooperation is more than welcome.