The American and European space agencies will give free access to their satellite fleets. Companies will therefore be able to use it according to their needs, as part of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
While almost half of human beings are currently in confinement, a large part of NASA and ESA projects are at a standstill. However, the two agencies have many satellites that they want to make available to companies. The goal? Fighting the Covid-19 pandemic in an innovative way. Through a press release published on April 2, 2020, ESA launched a call for projects aimed at European companies. These will be able to use satellites but also funding of 2.5 million euros . ESA will examine the projects between the end of April and the end of May and make its decision.
“The European Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite mission provides key information on changes in the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide. However, there remains enormous potential for using Earth observation data to shed new light on other ongoing societal and economic changes can we read in the press release.
Across the Atlantic, NASA is behind a similar initiative. The goal? Innovative use of the agency's satellites to deal with the impacts of the pandemic of Covid-19, whether environmental, economic or societal. This may, for example, involve measuring the effects of the pandemic on the environment, but also those of policies carried out locally.
NASA has also internally asked its employees to think about the creation of new personal protective equipment . It will also be a question of developing telemedicine applications, but also models of the spread of the disease. Finally, NASA is considering lending its supercomputers to researchers currently working on vaccines and other treatments for Covid-19.
Recall that the US space agency suspended assembly work on the SLS rocket a few weeks ago. Prior to this, NASA raised the threat risk to Level 4 at several of its facilities after several cases of Covid-19 were discovered. In other words, this should shift various missions in time. The epidemic should also impact the schedule of Artemis missions , the latter predicting a return of Americans to lunar soil in 2024.
