South Korean President Moon Jae-in visited Turkmenistan last week as part of a tour of Central Asian republics, and pledged South Korean expertise in helping the country to develop its first remote sensing satellite.

NASA awarded Planet a $6.7 million contract to provide Earth imagery for climate research.

Under the award Planet revealed in an 11 April blog, NASA will supply Planet data to 35 researchers to evaluate its utility alongside data provided by government Earth observation sensors, including NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation, and the second Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite.

PlanetObserver, provider of value-added geospatial data for civil and military solutions, has announced a new partnership with Airbus Defence and Space, a global leader in aeronautics, space and related services, to distribute their portfolio of very high resolution imagery and elevation products and services in Europe.

Kazakhstan proposed an Earth observation satellite programme to the official governmental delegations of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan at a meeting of the first Central Asian Economic Forum at Uzexpocenter, according to a Trend News Agency report via Uzbek media.

Kenya's newly formed Space Agency will lead the country's work with the ground breaking Africa Regional Data Cube to mine almost two decades of satellite imagery for crucial insights on farming strategies as climate stresses mount, according to a new partnership announced today.

Geoscience Australia and FrontierSI have engaged with more than 500 stakeholders on the development of its industry strategy for the Digital Earth Australia (DEA) program.

The European Union Delegation to the Philippines on Monday introduced the regional bloc's Earth observation program, which is seen to help the country mitigate climate change impacts and improve security for communities faces with the threat of natural disasters.

We all listen to weather forecasts and know they rely on satellite data. What may not be so obvious is that many other aspects of our lives depend on robust satellite data, from growing crops to tackling the major issue of climate change. The socio-economic benefits of Earth observation are huge, and increasing. In Europe, ESA, Eumetsat and the EU work closely together, in long-term partnerships, to make sure these benefits are delivered.

The new acting administrator of NOAA and the retiring head of NASA's Earth sciences division praised the potential of commercial satellite data purchases to augment their own satellite systems.

The 4th Session of the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET) took place this week in Cairo, Egypt. Yesterday, ministers endorsed the Abidjan Declaration in support of the new generation of meteorological satellite products.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) signed a £25M contract in Beijing yesterday with Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd (21AT) to provide data from a new Earth Observation satellite (SSTL-S1) due for launch on PSLV in the middle of this year. The contract was signed by Sir Martin Sweeting, Executive Chairman of SSTL, and Mme Wu Shuang, President and Chairman of 21AT, and witnessed by the UK Secretary of State, Dr Liam Fox.

Satellogic's recent agreement with a Chinese company to launch 90 commercial Earth observation satellites on five or six dedicated Long March rocket flights marks one of China's biggest wins in the global launch market.

The link between desertification, land degradation and climate change is among several issues occupying the attention of the 197 Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) for the next three days.

An amendment to the current Copernicus Agreement has been signed by the EU and ESA, adding €96 million to ESA's space component budget for the world's largest environmental monitoring programme: Copernicus.

China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) today announced a Multiple Launch Services Agreement (MLA) with Satellogic, the world's first vertically integrated geospatial analytics company. CGWIC will launch 90 of Satellogic's spacecraft from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The first launch – scheduled for later this year – will deliver a dedicated payload of 13 of Satellogic's spacecraft to Low Earth Orbit on a Long March 6 (LM-6) rocket.

Greenhouse gas monitoring was a hot topic at the American Meteorological Society's annual conference with international agencies discussing a global constellation and companies showing a new generation of sensors.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has awarded contracts to Ball Aerospace and Space Systems Loral to develop designs for a privately funded satellite to track methane emissions.

The European Union (EU) has awarded the HiSea consortium close to €2 million to develop, test and demonstrate information services that provide high resolution data of sea water quality.

Over the past two weeks, leaders from around the world gathered in Katowice (Poland) to discuss the state of play and future of the international agreements on climate change.

The ESA Council held its 277th meeting at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt on 12 and 13 December 2018.