Copernicus Australasia Regional Data Hub (the Hub) : Australasia's gateway to Sentinel Satellite data from Europe's Copernicus Programme

The Copernicus Australasia Regional Data Hub (the Hub) is Australasia’s gateway to Sentinel satellite data from Europe’s Copernicus Programme in our region, covering a third of the Earth’s surface. A free, open and trusted service that has shared over 10 Petabytes (PB) of Sentinel data, to a monthly average of 700 users from 40 different countries, since going fully operational in April 2018! The Copernicus Programme is a € 6.7 billion and 20+ year programme, financed and managed by the European Commission (EC). The Sentinel satellites that collect this data are built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). A cooperation arrangement between the EC and the Commonwealth (represented by Geoscience Australia) to access and use Sentinel data for the delivery of innovative products and services for societal benefit created the opportunity for the Hub, which is enabled by technical agreements with ESA and EUMETSAT. A consortium of five government agency Partners fund the Hub. So what’s Geoscience Australia’s (GA) role in all this and why is the Hub important? Furthermore, what does Eurovision have to do with it? Come join me to find out.