(30 May 2013) – The European Commission yesterday proposed the new earth observation programme called Copernicus, with a budget of €3.786 billion for the period 2014 – 2020.
This amount will be needed to pay for the development, launch and operations of a series of satellites (the ‘Sentinels’) and to establish six operational services which will transform satellite imagery into readily usable information products.
The six different services concern marine, atmosphere, land and climate change monitoring as well as support to emergency and security services.
Copernicus uses data from satellites and in-situ sensors such as buoys or air sensors to provide timely and reliable information and forecasting to support (for example) agriculture and fisheries, land use and urban planning, the fight against forest fires, disaster response, maritime transport or air pollution monitoring.