** April 2021 News from Sentinel Asia Project Office **- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *Topics:
1. [News] Emergency Observation of Disasters
2. Interview
3. Sentinel Asia Annual Report 2019 Released
4. Information
5. How to Send an Emergency Observation Request
6. Using Sentinel Asia Operation System, OPTEMIS- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *1. [News] Emergency Observation of Disasters (As of 27 April)(1) Flood, Landslide in Indonesia
Tropical Cyclone Seroja hit southeast Indonesia on 4 April 2021, which induced floodsand landslides. According to data from the National Agency for Disaster
Countermeasure (BNPB) Operation Control Center, as of 5 April, a total of 2,019
families, or 8,424 people, took refuge and 1,083 families, or 2,683 people, were affectedby the disaster.
The Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) made an
Emergency Observation Request (EOR) to Sentinel Asia on 4 April. This EOR wasescalated to the International Disaster Charter. LAPAN assumed the role of ProjectManager (PM) for this Disasters Charter activation. Among Data Provider Nodes(DPNs), the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Geo-Informatics andSpace Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), the National Applied ResearchLaboratories (NARL) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) provided
observation data. Among Data Analysis Nodes (DANs), the Earth Observatory ofSingapore (EOS) provided its Value-Added Product (VAP). Information on the latest
response by Sentinel Asia is available from the following link.
https://sentinel-asia.org/EO/2021/article20210404ID.html

Satellite image (THEOS1) provided by GISTDA.

Satellite image (FORMOSAT-5) provided by NARL

Satellite image (ALOS-2) provided by JAXA

Value Added Product by EOS(2) Flood, Landslide in Timor-Leste
Tropical Cyclone Seroja hit Timor-Leste on 4 April 2021, which induced floods andlandslides. According to data from the National Agency for Disaster, the latest official
figures (as of 7 April) from the Secretariat of State for Civil Protection, a total of 2,375
households--or 9,779 people--were in the 18 official evacuation facilities in Dili. There
were many more displaced in informal evacuation sites across the city. A total of 42
fatalities (including 13 people who were still missing and presumed dead) have beenrecorded.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) made an EOR to Sentinel Asia on4 April. This EOR was escalated to the International Disasters Charter. Among DPNs,ISRO, NARL and JAXA provided observation data. In addition, the Mohammed Bin
Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) and and the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing andProcessing (CRISP) have planned to conduct emergency observations . Among DANs,
the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and RIKEN provided their VAPs. Informationon the latest response by Sentinel Asia is available from the following link.
https://sentinel-asia.org/EO/2021/article20210404TL.html

Satellite image (FORMOSAT-5) provided by NARL

Satellite image (ALOS-2) provided by JAXA

Satellite image (Resourcesat-2A) provided by ISRO

Value Added Product by AITValue Added Product by RIKEN

- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *2. Interview
In 2019, Sentinel Asia introduced its new disaster data provision system called“Sentinel Asia Step-3 system”. Sentinel Asia Step-3 system is a joint project by GISTDA
and NARLabs (NSPO) with Academia Sinica, and JAXA. Its integral component
dedicated to Emergency Observation Requests is called the “Operation Planning Tool
for Earth-Observation Mission,” or “OPTEMIS”. OPTEMIS was developed by GISTDA.
The Sentinel Asia community witnessed the official launch of OPTEMIS during theJoint Project Team Meeting on 12 November 2019, hosted by ADPC in Bangkok,Thailand.
The Sentinel Asia Secretariat interviewed Mr. Wasanchai VONGSANTIVANICH andMr. Panupat HORMA with the GISTDA OPTEMIS team regarding its development
history and the way forward.

Inauguration Ceremony

Training on the use of OPTEMIS

chaired by Dr. Pakorn Apaphant(by Mr. Wasanchai VONGSANTIVANICH(GISTDA then- Board of Directors,and Mr. Panupat HORMA)

current Executive Director)

Secretariat
Could you tell us about your motivation for developing OPTEMIS for the Sentinel Asia
community?
GISTDA
About four or five years ago, I was working as satellite systems engineer and had a lotof chances to participate in many meetings and projects among different space agencies
in the region. Through those experiences, I came to think that one government could
not do everything alone since it is not sustainable in the long run. Satellite is aninternational platform by itself, even though many emerging space nations spend hugeamount of budget for satellite program to mainly monitor their resource domestically,
however the satellite orbits and overlooks everywhere around the world. With this fact,
it would be great if we could find the optimal and efficient way for different countries towork together and encourage them to share their space resource to be able to use it atfull potential. Thus, in GISTDA, I initiated a project to develop a mission planningsystem for multi-satellite operators whose objective is to create something thatfunctions automatically to collect all factors and make use of satellites resource
effectively. After we had finished the first phase of this project, Dr. Chaowalit
SILPATHONG, who was our deputy director at that time and was also involved inSentinel Asia, saw that there were links between our project and Sentinel Asia, so heinvited me to the Sentinel Asia meeting. As you know, Sentinel Asia is a regional
platform to coordinate and use Earth observation data for disasters in the Asia-Pacificregion with the full chain end-to-end members from satellite operators, data analysis
nodes up to the users. Coincidentally, what we want to do is to present a way in whichpeople can use space technology more efficiently, so, from this perspective, Sentinel Asia
was a great opportunity for us to bring our work to support regional collaborations andto bring the use of space to people which is our main goal. I believe this might also be apart to strengthen national space partnership in the Asia-Pacific. Since then, with thegreen light from Sentinel Asia steering committee, we have been continuously
developing and improving OPTEMIS system to be one of the tools of Sentinel Asia toenhance the collaborations among the members. This is the story behind how and whyI started to get involved in Sentinel Asia and OPTEMIS.
Secretariat
Have you encountered any challenges in this OPTEMIS project?
GISTDAOf course, COVID-19 is one of the main challenges for everyone, however with the strong
teamwork of Sentinel Asia technical steering committee, we can keep up our efforts andcontinue our work and improvements for Sentinel Asia at the same pace as before. More

importantly, since we are developing IT systems for different national users, we must
concern and be careful about cyber security standards and practices. We could say that
we have learned a lot and enjoy a lot on working on this project. Despite that GISTDA
is now undergoing reorganization and the sponsorship for the project is being paused
for a while, our research team is still voluntarily working and eager to continue tocontribute to Sentinel Asia. We are fully committed to supporting and being a part togrow this meaningful Sentinel Asia collaboration.
Secretariat
How is it like for you to cooperate with Sentinel Asia members on the development ofOPTEMIS?
GISTDA
Sentinel Asia technical team (JAXA, NSPO) is like our family, we enjoy a lot working
with JAXA, Kawakita-san and his team always provides us kind support. Also, we havea remarkably close partnership with NARLabs/NSPO (Bo Chen, Jer Ling, Eric andEddy) on the development of OPTEMIS and learned a lot from them. However, I would
like to add that we feel close and eager to work with everyone in Sentinel Asia. Sentinel
Asia community is fantastic and we feel like everyone is caring for each other, this might
be because the aim of Sentinel Asia is to work together to support disaster relief. It is
obvious from many past experiences that Sentinel Asia could be the first steppingstoneand this great collaborative scheme could continue and extend to other domains as well.
Secretariat
Now every Sentinel Asia member uses your system.
GISTDAWe are immensely proud and keen to continue to contribute to Sentinel Asia, trying tobring space closer to people and to bring technology to help people. That is one of ourmotivations to improve OPTEMIS.
Secretariat
Do you have any future plans for OPTEMIS?
GISTDA
Data Provider Nodes (DPNs) and Data Analysis Nodes (DAN) are already using thesystem and we continuously develop and improve according to their comments andrecommendations. For future modules, I think there are still rooms to improve, and wewill be able to make it better. One thing we want to improve is to expand the benefit topeople in affected areas and to enhance satellite data with more useful information. Weare now considering a project implementing more sensors, including drones, and crowdsourcing data for disaster management. We have tried this in Thailand for wildfire
applications, and if this is successful, we are willing to contribute and open it to everymember. This is a matter of data fusion and AI, so it might be beyond Sentinel Asia, but
this is very interesting point for us because satellite data on its own is sometimes notenough.
Secretariat
How would you like to enhance the collaboration with Sentinel Asia in the future?
GISTDAWe believe that the more effectively and timely Sentinel Asia provides information forassists disaster response in the affected area, the stronger the community it will be. For
our part, we could potentially assist in terms of providing a useful multilateral platform
to support everyone to work together closely and dynamically. In addition to the goodcollaboration, we should consider making this community sustainable, this could bedone through getting involve participation from every member to make Sentinel Asia
community strong in the long run.

Mr. Wasanchai VONGSANTIVANICH (right) and Mr. Panupat HORMA (left)
at the Sentinel Asia café exhibition corner during the JPTM 2019 hosted by ADPC

- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *3. Sentinel Asia Annual Report 2019 Released
Sentinel Asia Annual Report 2019 has been published on the Sentinel Asia website.
(https://sentinel-asia.org/reports/Reports/SA_Annual_Report_2019.pdf). Activities by
each of the organizations of Sentinel Asia are covered in the report. It is highly
appreciated that the report could be published thanks to your support on behalf of theorganizations’ sessions of the Joint Project Team Meeting (JPTM), even although JPTM
itself had to be canceled due to the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *- * - * - * - * - * - *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

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