Partnerships Cemented Into Place For GMES

European Space Agency (ESA) Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain and Heinz Zourek, Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry Policy, have signed an agreement in Brussels to reinforce the performance of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) earth observation system. GMES is a European Union-led initiative organized in partnership with European Space Agency (ESA) to combine ground and space-based observations to develop an integrated environmental and security monitoring capability. ESA’s role within GMES is to implement the dedicated GMES Space Component, which involves developing the Sentinel satellite series and their ground segment and to coordinate access to data stemming from the Sentinels and from other missions which contribute to fulfilling of the GMES service requirements—Brussels, Belgium