presentation belspo & event objectives

E:\S\presen\Nijs presentation\2014_06_09_applications for BE.docx

Space Applications for BE

June 19th 2014 J. Nijskens

(Space department of Belspo) Mesdames, Messieurs,

Dames et Heren,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

BELSPO (Belgian Science Policy Office) is proud to welcome you at

our event : 'Space applications for Belgium' and I'm very pleased to

see so many people in this room - more than 200 inscriptions.

I'm J N Director of the Space department of Belspo (Belgian Science

Policy office) which is in charge of managing the Belgian contribution

to international space programmes, invested mainly through the ESA

framework but also through bilateral agreements such as our

cooperation with France (SPOT, Pleiades, Vegetation), our

cooperation with Argentina (Saocom) and last but not least through

our own EO research programme STEREO.


Belgium invests a lot in space as confirmed once more during the last

ESA Ministerial Council which took place in Naples in November

2012. During the preparation of that meeting our Council of Ministers

decided to allocate 203 M€ yearly for space activities and this for a

five year period covering 2013-2017.

We have largely debriefed the results of that ministerial Council

highlighting the programmes supported by Belgium, some of these

being of high importance to support space applications. It was asked,

during the preparation of the ESA ministerial council, to try and

enlarge the number of actors from the 'classic industry actors and

scientific actors/researchers' usually involved. We are convinced that

it is in the domain of space applications that we can reach that goal.

When we speak about Space applications and Services, we often look

to the most promising and mature sector which is the one of telecom.

In this sector, it is well known that the service providers occupy the

most important role in the value chain.


Let's give some figures - It was quoted by the European Satellite

Operators Association for the year 2012:

That the market value amounts

7 B$ for the manufacturing companies

14 B$ for the operators (twice the previous one)

5 B$ for the terminal manufacturers

110 B$ for the service providers (4 time the 3 other together)

There are other fields such as Navigation and Earth observation,

which have not reached the same maturity but where it is expected

that the ratio between services and infrastructure is of the same order

of magnitude.

Speaking of markets, for sure beside the private markets there are also

the institutional markets which do not exactly follow the same rules,

but for which applications and services are needed for the society.

These have to be supported by the public sector, as is the case for the

services initiated and supported by the European Commission in Earth

observation.


It is evident that having invested a lot in infrastructures, we have to do

more to prepare our actors to tackle these markets.

This is the raison why we have organised this meeting today, to

inform you about the programmes from different sources (ESA, EC,

National, ...) which can help the Belgian actors to develop applications

and services.

Since we are not starting from scratch we will also have presentations

about success stories to illustrate what is possible.

The day will end with a round table which I hope will identify, if any,

the bottlenecks or shortages in the chain from infrastructure to

sustainable services as well as the measures needed to remove these.

Let me also announce that BELSPO will support the "Space Days

2014" (October 13th and 14th at Redu), organized by Wallonie

Espace.


Lastly let me inform you that besides the budgetary means available in

the programmes dedicated to supporting the creation of applications

and services, we have decided to join an initiative of ESA which

consist in the appointment of an ARTES applications Broker, this

person will be presented to you in the afternoon during the IAP

presentation of ESA.

I wish you a good and fruitful day.

presentation belspo & event objectives

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