LuCoIIGS

Inspiration

Copernicus, the European Union Earth Observation (EO) programme, provides a wealth of information on a free and open access basis around the Globe. These EO-based data are of great interest to address key societal challenges, such as the management of the environment, and are therefore widely used by the research organizations, public administrations and companies.

In the last decade, Luxembourg placed itself as a competitive country in the space area, and in particular in Earth Observation. To reinforce its position and make Luxembourg an attractive place for international companies, the ministry of Economy made a long-term investment aiming to provide a reliable national access point to EO-based data (the so-called Luxembourg Space Agency Data Center) through the LuCoIIGS project and to promote the use of EO data in the country.

Innovation

The objective of LuCoIIGS is to enable a reliable and timely national access point to Copernicus data by the creation of a Luxembourgish Collaborative Ground Segment : the Luxembourg Space Agency Data Center.  

As national Copernicus relay and member of the Copernicus Academy, LIST is in charge of raising awareness about the use of multiple applications of EO satellite data in Luxembourg, but also in the Greater-Region. LIST researchers will also be a national contact point for Copernicus data and will provide thematic as well as technical support to Luxembourgish users.

Impact

LuCoIIGS will create the first Luxembourg Space Data Center enabling a reliable, timely and accurate national access to all Luxembourgish users, such as research organizations, private companies and administrations. As a result, Luxembourg will increase its attractiveness in the space sector and provide an innovative infrastructure accelerating the downstream sector of value-added applications and services using EO-based data.

With proven experience in remote sensing and several ongoing projects dealing with EO data, LIST will make benefit of this innovative infrastructure, and therefore will have the opportunity to rely on better data stream for its own projects.