Earth observation services worth Euro 600 million will be sold in 2006. Estimated growth is 20% annually. The European Space Agency (ESA) has asked DNV to help define a possible certification regime.
”Certification can play a role in improving product quality and thereby getting users to trust the products and services,” states Narve Mjøs, Head of Space Activity in DNV, who is project responsible of this project. DNV has previously carried out several projects to help the space industry define safety, quality and certification regimes, including Galileo, Europe’s parallel to GPS.
“Certification can help to speed up customer acceptance of earth observation products,” says Narve Mjøs. Certification can also play a role in reducing the cost of the earth observation products by introducing more streamlined processes.
Strong standing in ESA
Nina Hesby of DNV Consulting is the project manager and is to deliver a certification standard, a description of the certification organisation and certification processes and a road map for implementation by January 2008, within a budget framework of Euro 750,000.
“We are aiming to replace the space talk and use a language everyone can understand, one partly based on ISO standard terminology which is used in the industry in general,” says Nina Hesby. This is important because the users and the buyers of the services are coming from all types of industries.
She has already had her first meetings with the industry and will follow up with rounds of interviews and workshops. “DNV and third-party services have a strong standing in ESA.
Nina Hesby does not rule out that this assignment may pave the way for a new type of DNV certification service. DNV has already got another assignment from the British company AMEC to assess and audit earth observation services used in their Corporate Sustainability Reporting.