The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched its flagship Biomass satellite on 29 April 2025 at 06:15 local time (11:15 CEST) from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, aboard a Vega-C rocket. Developed by Airbus Defence and Space, the satellite separated from the launch vehicle under an hour after liftoff. Shortly thereafter, ESA's operations center in Germany received the first signal from Biomass, transmitted via a ground station in Antarctica, confirming its healthy status in orbit.
Africa achieved a historic breakthrough in its space ambitions on April 20, 2025, with the formal launch of the African Space Agency (AfSA) at its new permanent headquarters in Cairo’s Space City, Egypt. This milestone event concludes nearly ten years of careful planning and collaboration, which began in January 2016 when the African Union Assembly endorsed the African Space Policy and Strategy at its Twenty-Sixth Ordinary Session, creating the foundation for a continent-wide space initiative.
The March 28, 2025, M7.7 earthquake near Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), occurred as the result of strike-slip faulting between the India and Eurasia plates. Focal mechanism solutions indicate that slip occurred on either a north-striking, steeply-dipping, right-lateral fault or a west-striking, steeply-dipping, left-lateral fault. The finite fault solution indicates a north-striking right-lateral fault.
This is event is available for participation on an ongoing basis
Held every three years, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Living Planet Symposia are among the world’s leading events on Earth observation. The upcoming Living Planet Symposium 2025 (LPS25) will focus on the urgent need to transition from observation to climate actionandsustainability in light of the growing climate crisis.
Spacecraft orbiting Earth play a vital role in monitoring climate change, enabling global communication and navigation, and advancing scientific research. However, many of these orbits are becoming overcrowded and increasingly filled with hazardous debris from old satellites and rockets, posing a serious threat to the future of space operations.
The 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake struck northwestern Japan on January 1, with a magnitude of 7.6 at a depth of 15 km in Ishikawa Prefecture's Noto region. It was a reverse fault earthquake with a northwest-southeast pressure axis, occurring within the Earth's crust (IAEG, 2024). Also, a tsunami of up to 1.2 m was observed. The earthquake caused many deaths, injuries, collapse of houses and buildings, fires and landslides.
The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have co-authored a publication which emphasizes the importance of space technologies in addressing global food security challenges and supporting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This is event is available for participation on an ongoing basis
Registration is now open for the 4th Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) Global Flood Forecasting and Monitoring Meeting. This online event will take place on April 2nd and 3rd, 2025, from 13:00 to 16:30 UTC each day.
This is event is available for participation on an ongoing basis
The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security and development. The Committee was tasked with reviewing international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, studying space-related activities that could be undertaken by the United Nations, encouraging space research programmes, and studying legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space.
The ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence (https://eratosthenes.org.cy/) was established in 2020 through the EXCELSIOR H2020 Widespread Teaming project (https://excelsior2020.eu/) after upgrading the existing Remote Sensing and Geo-Environment Lab that operates at the Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics of the Cyprus University of Technology since 2007. ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence (CoE) aspires to become a world-class Digital Innovation Hub and a reference Centre for Earth Observation, Space technology and Geospatial Information in the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa (EMMENA) region.
The ERATOSTHENES CoE as a Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) adopts a two-axis model. The vertical axis consists of three Thematic Departments for sustained excellence in research of the ERATOSTHENES CoE, i.e., Environment & Climate, Resilient Society and Big Earth Data Analytics, whereas the horizontal axis consists of four functional areas, i.e., Infrastructure, Research, Education and Entrepreneurship. The DIH will create an ecosystem which combines state-of-the-art remote sensing, data management and processing technologies, cutting – edge research opportunities, targeted education services and promotion of entrepreneurship. In order to be dynamic and innovative, the Digital Innovation Hub will be based on two flagship infrastructures (https://eratosthenes.org.cy/functional-areas/infrastructure-functional-area/), a Satellite Ground Receiving Station and a Ground-based atmospheric remote sensing station.
ERATOSTHENES CoE hosts a multi-disciplinary team of highly skilled researchers and engineers with numerous publications in peer reviewed journals, nominations and awards, as well research projects funded from various European and National funding sources in different thematic areas, such as Environment & Climate (Atmosphere, Agriculture, Water, Land), Resilient Society (Disaster Risk Reduction, Cultural Heritage, Marine Safety & Security, Energy) and Big Earth Data Analytics (Information Extraction, Visual Exploration & Visualization, Crowdsourcing & Data Fusion, Geoinformatics.). The activities of the Disaster Risk Reduction Cluster of the ERATOSTHENES CoE, that are directly aligned to the goals of UN-SPIDER, involve the systematic monitoring of hazards, the development of Early Warning and Decision Support Systems dealing with earthquakes, landslides, coastal/soil erosions, forest fires, floods, drought and epidemics.
Archived satellite data from various sources (Copernicus, MODIS, etc.)
The Cyprus Data Cube (https://cyprusdatacube.com/)
The ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence (CoE) engages with the complete ecosystem of stakeholders in a Multi-Actor approach, linking with players segmented according to their geographic location (from central Europe, to South-Eastern Europe, to EMMENA region), their position in the EO value chain (from EO data providers, to science laboratories and research institutes, to SMEs and large industries) and their mandate (from Public Sector, to sectorial coordination organizations, to economic development banks, etc.).
In this framework, ERATOSTHENES CoE provide capacity building for the professional development of public and private stakeholders in Cyprus and beyond with a focus on equipping and facilitating scientific and research personnel in the field of Earth Observation and Geoinformatics. The programme acts as a regional multiplier in the EMMENA, educating the new generation of scientists and motivating them to create new businesses, capitalizing on innovative research. In addition to the ERATOSTHENES CoE staff, governmental departments, private companies and end-users can benefit from the EO professional training schemes. Moreover, ERATOSTHENES CoE is a certified Vocational and Education Training (VET) Centre under the Cyprus Human Resource Development Authority (HRDA), capable to carry out subsidized, co-financed and/or advertised by HRDA training activities.
Last but not least, ERATOSTHENES CoE offers, in collaboration with the Cyprus University of Technology, a MSc degree in Geoinformatics and Earth Observation, and PhD students at Cyprus University of Technology have access to the ERATOSTHENES CoE facilities and infrastructure to conduct their research.
Address : Franklin Roosevelt 82, Limassol 3012, Cyprus
