** January 2021 News from Sentinel Asia Project Office **- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *Topics:
1. [News] Emergency Observation of Disasters Occurring in January 2021
2. [Interview] Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC)
3. Information
4. How to send Emergency Observation Request
5. Using Sentinel Asia Operation System, OPTEMIS- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *1. [News] Emergency Observation of Disasters Occurring in January 2021. (as of 25January)(1) Earthquake in Indonesia
A magnitude 6.2 earthquake occurred in Majene, Indonesia on 15 January 2021.
National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) reported that at least 42 people(34 in Mamuju and 8 in Majane) died, 189 people in Mamuju Regency wereseriously injured, around 637 people suffered minor injured and 15,000 residents
had been displaced. (https://www.bnpb.go.id/berita/-update-sebanyak-189-orang-dirawat-dikabupaten-mamuju-pascagempa-m6-2-)

Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) made an
Emergency Observation Request (EOR) to Sentinel Asia on 15 January. This EOR
was escalated to the International Disaster Charter. LAPAN assumed the role ofProject Manager (PM) for this Disasters Charter activation. Among Data Provider
Nodes (DPNs), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Mohammed Bin
Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL)
and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) provided their observation data.
Among Data Analysis Nodes (DANs), Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS)
provided their VAPs. The information on the latest response by Sentinel Asia isavailable from the following link.
https://sentinel-asia.org/EO/2021/article20210115ID.html

Satellite image (KhalifaSat) provided by MBRSC

Satellite image (ALOS-2 PALSAR-2, L1.1) provided by JAXA

Product by EOS- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *2. [Interview]
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), founded in 2006, is home to theUnited Arab Emirates’ National Space Program. MBRSC builds and operates earthobservation satellites, offering imaging and data analysis services. MBRSC has been amember of Sentinel Asia since 2017. In addition to its contribution to supply its
observation data as Data Provider Node (DPN), recently MBRSC has been supporting
Emergency Observation Requests (EORs) as Data Analysis Node (DAN) as well, byproviding many value-added products.
Commemorating MBRSC’s first provision of KhalifaSat data in August 2020, theSentinel Asia Secretariat (Dr. Shiro Kawakita, Mr. Takanori Miyoshi and staffmembers) interviewed Ms. Alia Mohammad Al Mekhyat and Ms. Shaikha Ahmed
Albesher of MBRSC for their contribution to the Sentinel Asia.

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
On behalf of the secretariat, I warmly thank you for giving us this opportunity tointerview you concerning your contribution and support for Sentinel Asia. Looking backon the history of the partnership between MBRSC and Sentinel Asia, we could cite themilestone event, “the Steering Committee (SC) joint mission to MBRSC” in 2017 rightafter MBRSC joined Sentinel Asia as a DPN member. Colleagues from Asian DisasterReduction Center (ADRC), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Geo-Informatics andSpace Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), and JAXA visited you. Since then,MBRSC has been supporting Sentinel Asia activities, by providing Dubaisat-2 images
and a lot of fruitful input as a SC member. I remember on the occasion of SC joint
mission, MBRSC colleagues kindly showed us around facilities, such as a ground control
room and a clean room in which a flight model of KhalifaSat was being assembled. After
that, it was successfully launched with JAXA’s Greenhouse Gases Observing SatelliteIBUKI-2 (GOSAT-2) on H-IIA launch vehicle. Then, at the SC meeting in June last year
you expressed that you would register KhalifaSat as part of Sentinel Asia’s constellation,and then you did indeed provide the image! The first KhalifaSat image provided lastAugust was so vivid and enabled us to capture the situation clearly and to support therequester. We are really pleased to see how the partnership has been strengthened and
we are grateful for your dedicated commitment and support. Today, we would like tohear from you more detailed information on the data provision of KhalifaSat and yourmotivation.

MBRSC
We appreciate the nice words, as well as we are glad you visited us to witness theassembly of our third and most advanced satellite, KhalifaSat, and now after the
successful launch, we are working with data acquired by KhalifaSat.
Firstly, speaking of Sentinel Asia, we are much honored to be part of this noble initiative.
It is a great honor to help humankind by mitigating impacts of disasters using our spacebased resources, whether through our satellite imagery or our value added products.
From our side, I can assure you that our team has expanded from your last visit, which
you can see on with the OPTEMIS system. In fact, we have updated the plan and theoperation status. Thus, currently, once we receive any emergency observation requests,
such requests are immediately directed to our mission planner. Then, the mission
planner will immediately task the satellite to capture the area affected by the disaster.
Of course, that depends on the availability of the satellite such as where the satellite isin orbit, as well as on the priority list we have. Subsequently, mission planners will place
the order and task the satellite, whether it is using KhalifaSat or DubaiSat-2, and goahead with the imaging whenever it is applicable. Once the satellites are tasked andthe image is captured and downloaded successfully, the task will be handed over toanother colleague at our Image Processing Section. Once the image is processed, it will
be uploaded on the OPTEMIS server for Sentinel Asia colleagues so that they canbenefit from the image, and distribute it to the concerned party. Previously, we had adifferent approach, it was one person handling all those tasks. Now as we haveexplained, we have one person dedicated to a specific task in order to simplify and speed

up the process. And we believe it has developed and improved our contribution andparticipation in the Sentinel Asia initiative.

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
We are really impressed that you have upgraded the whole workflow for Sentinel Asia.
Now we can expect further support for the Sentinel Asia community. In terms of theEOR operation procedure including the system, is there anything that the secretariat
should improve in order to facilitate your response to EORs?

MBRSC
Honestly, when we started using the system, it was an exceptionally smooth process.
We even mentioned that in several emails to the team from Sentinel Asia, the system issuper clear and simple. Uploading any imagery is quite simple and very easy, especiallyafter the latest update. We could even demonstrate the usage of the system to our teammembers very easily. It is indeed efficient to work using this system. From our end,
there is only one matter that we need to take into consideration, which is cloud coverage.
In fact, since our satellites are optical satellites we find it difficult to provide data fordisasters such us flooding with cloud coverage. Therefore, although we always try to
respond to Sentinel Asia’s EORs and indeed we do behind the scene tasking, it is notalways that we are able to upload data on the system in such cases.

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
It is great to hear that MBRSC always tries to respond to Sentinel Asia’s EORs, even if
the DubaiSat and KhalifaSat data are not uploaded to OPTEMIS. Thank you very muchagain for your outstanding support to Sentinel Asia EORs. MBRSC satellites are always
useful because the resolutions are high. As in the case of the recent EORs for Beirut andIzmir which you provided KhalifaSat images, the Sentinel Asia community would reallyappreciate your support. At the same time, as you mentioned, for optical satellites, cloud
coverage is always a challenge. In this regard, in order to have more supports from yourside, perhaps we could ask requesters to narrow down the area. In many cases, the areaof interest stated by the requesters may be too large, and it might be difficult for you totask under cloud-free environment, but if requesters are able to narrow down thespecific area of interest, and then it will become easier for you to proceed. Would thatwork?

MBRSC
Definitely, that will help us. If we have cloud coverage in the scene, we can specify theexact area in which the disaster occurred at. In addition, we can either upload the image
even if it had cloud coverage, it might be of benefit. If the image is 90% cloudy but
remaining 10% area is not affected and could benefit, and leave it up to end user to asses.

We hope this step will improve our contribution further.

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
Speaking of MBRSC’s support, recently, MBRSC has been active not only as a DPN but
also as a DAN. Could you tell us how you are working on generating value added
products?

MBRSC
MBRSC was strongly motivated to contribute as a DAN member, and worked on placing
a new process in order to participate as a DAN. Based on the requests placed on thesystem, we search and order the most suitable available data, and start on our analysis
process to provide products as fast as possible.
This participation is helping us in utilizing present data sources, and developing
MBRSC’s geospatial analysis expertize to provide critical information for disaster
stricken areas. We aim to provide an analytical assessment of disasters, such as floods
or earthquakes, in order assess in taking vital and effective decisions to reduce oreliminate any fatal risks.

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
In terms of your activity as a DAN, I remember that the Director of MBRSC mentioned,
during our joint visit mission to MBRSC three years ago, that MBRSC would like tocontribute to EOR as DAN as well in the future. Now you are indeed supporting EOR
as DAN, for which we are grateful to you.

MBRSC
Three years ago, we had only one person working on value added products. We have
expanded the team and a member joined the team to support. So now after three years,
we are pleased to further support Sentinel Asia, as both a DPN and DAN.

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
As you know, Sentinel Asia is not a small community. We have many agencies from thewest to east. Do you have any expectation for future cooperation with the Sentinel Asiaand its members?

MBRSC
From our side, of course, we are honored to support the Sentinel Asia for as many years
as possible. And we hope for further partnerships and collaborations that will help andassist Sentinel Asia and to mitigate the effects of natural disasters, and hopefully wewould like to help reduce any post disaster damage on humankind. Also, we will do ourbest to further support such great initiative.

Additionally, we have a new satellite currently under development, named “MBZ-Sat”.
Although we will provide you with the further detailed information later once
determined, we can tell you now that the satellite will be with an improved Image
Capture resolution. MBZ-Sat will also have an improved performance regarding dataprocessing and downloads.

Sentinel Asia Secretariat
We are really excited to hear that. Even current Dubaisat-2 and KhalifaSat provide very
high-resolution images and with more enhanced capability, MBZ-Sat will be further
benefit the Sentinel Asia community. Thank you very much for your kind offer. Finally,
we thank you once again for giving us the opportunity to interview you. We are pleased
with and really grateful for your support for Sentinel Asia.

Alia Mohammad Almekhyat

Shaikha Ahmed Albesher- Officer -- Engineer -Business Development Section,

Remote Sensing Applications Unit, Remote

Remote Sensing Department

Sensing Department- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *3. [Information]
Sentinel Asia has uploaded the list of "ALL" emergency observation responses (over300!) on the Sentinel Asia web portal.
https://sentinel-asia.org/EO/EmergencyObservation.html
You can browse, all VAPs (estimated flood maps and others provided by DANs), andthumbnails of satellite images on the site.
It would be great if they could help you understand our work, operation and efforts.

- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *4. How to send Emergency Observation Request
JPT member organizations are entitled to send Emergency Observation Request(EOR) for disasters in the Asia-Pacific region.
Please refer to https://sentinel-asia.org/elearning/Emergency_Observation_Request.html
EOR Order Desk:
Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC)
HP: http://www.adrc.asia/
E-mail: sarequest@adrc.asia
FAX: +81-78-262-5546,
TEL: +81-78-262-5540- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *5. Using Sentinel Asia Operation System, OPTEMISThe Sentinel Asia launched new operation system, OPTEMIS. Please refer to thewebsite how to create the account of OPTEMIS. https://sentinel-asia.org/elearning/Emergency_Observation_Request.html+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+===+==
Copyright 2021 the Sentinel Asia Secretariat
Sentinel Asia Project OfficeSatellite Applications and Operations Center (SAOC)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
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E-mail: Z-SENTINEL.ASIA@ml.jaxa.jp
TEL: +81-3-6435-6785
FAX: +81-3-5777-1580