At the ongoing European Space Conference in Brussels (January 28-29), e-GEOS (Telespazio 80% and ASI 20%) and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the signing of a contract worth approximately €5 million for distribution of COSMO-SkyMed data in Copernicus services, continuing the Italian constellation's support for the Programme, which has lasted for over a decade.

The COSMO-SkyMed constellation -owned by the Italian Space Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defence, for which e-GEOS is the exclusive worldwide distributor of data for commercial purposes– is therefore confirmed as one of the leading Copernicus Contributing Missions (CCM) of the European Commission's Earth Observation Programme, ensuring the timely provision of SAR data complementary to those of the Sentinel missions.

The licence was granted following a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) procedure established by ESA for the purchase of commercial Earth Observation data to support Copernicus services. As part of the procedure, for the COSMO-SkyMed mission, e-GEOS was defined as a consolidated European commercial data provider for Copernicus.

 Users will enjoy access to COSMO-SkyMed constellation data through ESA's Rapid Response Desk (RRD) developed by a consortium led by GAF AG (a 100% e-GEOS company) together with e-GEOS, Sinergise Solutions, Telespazio Ibérica, T-Systems and TAITUS.