The work sessions were attended by representatives of European and International Space Institutions, the Academic World, and the Space Industry, to discuss the evolution of the Space Economy, and the future challenges facing the space sector.
During the round table discussions on “Challenges and Opportunities Facing Europe”, Luigi Pasquali said: “The European space sector is facing unprecedented challenges in markets and applications, with the emergence of new business models and new technologies. Leonardo glimpses interesting opportunities in This new scenario, that significantly extends the impact of space services. In fact, space has become an additional “layer” of the digital ecosystem, and the digital transformation in progress multiplies the space sector’s possibilities for contributing in various sectors of the economy, creating business opportunities for industry, and facilitating the emergency of start-ups in a variety of fields of application”.
The field of space activity, which started out as a pioneering and strategic endeavour, of a mainly scientific and technological nature, has gradually developed to become a highly significant economic sector, and a factor that enables an ever increasing number of application networks and platforms, in the most diverse sectors of activity. The expression, “Space Economy” specifically defines this pervasive dimension of space activities that make an ever more widespread and growing contribution to the economy of advanced countries.
The convention was also attended by Massimo Claudio Comparini, Telespazio’s Head of Business Geoinformation and Chief Executive Officer of e-GEOS, who spoke in the panel on “Global Connectivity and Earth Observation: The Economy of Satellite Services in the Age of Big Data and Analytics”.
One of the most debated topics in talks about the evolution of the technological paradigms associated with the Space Economy is that of big data generated by space infrastructures. This radical evolution is made possible by the growing availability of data acquired by various sensors, and is based on the development of processing capacity and speed as well as cloud architectures, for distributing and providing services.
Already today, the growth in the quantity of data generated, is exponential. Leonardo is a world-wide provider - via its subsidiaries, Telespazio and e-GEOS – of geoinformation applications and services, handling large volumes of satellite images that can be integrated with data from sensors on the ground or onboard aircraft, helicopters, or drones, with archives, and social media.