Beijing, Paris, Noordwijk, 18 May 2021 - China HEAD Aerospace Technology Co. and its subsidiary HEAD Technology France (HEAD) announced the inauguration of the Ground Receiving Station (GRS) in Ethiopia.
HEAD was awarded a multi-million Euro contract in 2019 through a consortium led by HEAD and its partner China Centre for Resources Satellite Data and Applications (CRESDA) following an international open tender issued by Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute (ESSTI) to procure a commercial Earth observation (EO) satellite ground receiving station.
The inauguration of the GRS was held on 15 May 2021 in the Enototo Observatory in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Senior government officers, including Dr. Ahmedin Mohammed, the State Minister of Innovation and Technology and Mr. Efa Muleta, the State Minister of Agriculture attended the inauguration among 200 invited guests. Mr. Abidssa Yilma, Director General of ESSTI and Dr. Wei Sun, Vice President of HEAD, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a long term strategic partnership supporting the development of Earth Observation and Internet of Things (IoT) applications in Ethiopia.
Mr Abidssa Yilma, Director General of ESSTI, commented: “The inauguration of this ground station is a significant milestone for ESSTI, this ground station establishes ESSTI to be the National Geospatial Hub for meeting the national demands in satellite imagery for various applications for agriculture, national security, urban planning, water management as well as cadastral mapping.”
The GRS will receive optical and radar satellite imagery at submeter resolution collected from the Superview (SV) constellation with four on-orbit optical satellites at 50cm resolution, GaoFen- 3 (GF-3) radar satellite and CBERS satellite. Mrs. Kammy Brun, Managing Director at HEAD, commented, “We are very proud to be awarded by ESSTI to provide the first commercial EO ground station in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks to the support of ESSTI and our subcontractors (Safran Data Systems, Deimos Space & OTA), we have invested our enthusiasm in this project and made it happen even during the harsh global pandemic period”. Within this contract, HEAD offers an end to end service to ESSTI, demonstrating a unique positioning acting as the bridge between China and Europe to the Africa region.
About HEAD Aerospace Technology Co. Ltd (HEAD)
China HEAD Aerospace Technology Co. Ltd (HEAD) is a privately owned, independent company founded in 2007 and headquartered in Beijing, China, with subsidiaries in Hong Kong, the Netherlands and France with two business units, Earth observation (EO) and Internet of Things (IoT). Thanks to our access to 40+ Earth observation satellites, HEAD is uniquely positioned to be a one-stop-shop for providing integrated access to satellite imagery from multi-sources and also acts as a prime contractor to provide complex turnkey geospatial solutions. The Global team manages more than 85 distributors worldwide to market satellite imagery collected by the Chinese government and commercial Earth Observation satellites. Our offer includes a direct receiving station for near real-time access to satellite imagery, a centralized geodata hub of satellite imagery and processed geospatial data in the country for government and commercial users.
In addition to the Earth observation and geospatial activities, HEAD operates its own Space-based Internet-of-Things (IoT) constellation with five on-orbit satellites including the most recent launch HEAD-5 in June 2020.visit: https://www.head-aerospace.eu/
Contact:
Mrs Kammy BRUN
Managing Director
HEAD Aerospace Technology (HEAD)