The International Charter Space and Major Disasters is a non-binding

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

which provides for the

charitable Charity is the voluntary provision of assistance to those in need. It serves as a humanitarian act, and is unmotivated by self-interest. Various philosophies about charity exist, with frequent associations with religion. Etymology The word ...

and

humanitarian Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotiona ...

acquisition and transmission of

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

data to relief organizations in the event of major disasters. Initiated by the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

and the French space agency

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

after the UNISPACE III conference held in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Austria, in July 1999, it officially came into operation on November 1, 2000, after the

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; ) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The President of the Canadian Space Agency, president is Lisa Campbell (civil servant), Lisa Campbell, who took ...

signed onto the charter on October 20, 2000. Their space assets were then, respectively, ERS and

ENVISAT Envisat ("Environmental Satellite") is a large Earth-observing satellite which has been inactive since 2012. It is still in orbit and considered space debris. Operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), it was the world's largest civilian Ear ...

SPOT Spot or SPOT may refer to: Places * Spot, North Carolina, a community in the United States * The Spot, New South Wales, a locality in Sydney, Australia * South Pole Traverse, sometimes called the South Pole Overland Traverse People * Spot Coll ...

and Formosat, and RADARSAT. The assorted satellite assets of various corporate, national, and international space agencies and entities provide for humanitarian coverage which is wide albeit contingent. First activated for a landslide in Slovenia in November 2000, the Charter has since brought space assets into play for numerous floods, earthquakes, oil spills, forest fires, tsunamis, major snowfalls, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and landslides, and furthermore (and unusually) for the search for

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned de ...

and for the

2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak The 2013–2016 epidemic of Ebola virus disease, centered in West Africa, was the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history. It caused major loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in the region, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and S ...

. As of 2015, fifteen space agencies are signatories; dozens of satellites are available with

image resolution Image resolution is the level of detail of an image. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies ...

s ranging from per pixel to about per pixel. As of August 2018, it had had 579 activations, from 125 countries, and had 17 members, which contributed 34 satellites. It won the prestigious William T. Pecora Award in 2017.

Successive signatories and satellite assets

* United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

) — ( POES), (

GOES The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather fo ...

) and Indian Space Research Organization (

ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), overseen by the Prime Minister o ...

) (September 2001) — (the Indian Remote Sensing satellite series) * Argentine Space Agency (

CONAE The National Space Activities Commission (Spanish language , Spanish: ''Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales'', CONAE) is the civilian agency of the government of Argentina in charge of the national space programme. History Sociedad ...

) (July 2003) — ( SAC-C) * February 2005 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

)International Charter on Space and Major Disasters
// International Symposium on Remote Sensing Applications to Natural Hazards, Washington, D.C. 12 September 2007, Barbara J. Ryan (Associate Director for Geography, U. S. Geological Survey) — (

ALOS Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS), also called Daichi (a Japanese word meaning "land"), was a 3810 kg Japanese satellite launched in 2006. After five years of service, the satellite lost power and ceased communication with Earth, b ...

) * ? 2005 – United States Geological Survey (

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

) as part of the U.S. team — (

Landsat The Landsat program is the longest-running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. It is a joint NASA / USGS program. On 23 July 1972, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Lan ...

, Quickbird,

GeoEye 1 GeoEye Inc. (formerly Orbital Imaging Corporation, or ORBIMAGE) was an American commercial satellite imagery company based in Herndon, Virginia. GeoEye was merged into the DigitalGlobe corporation on January 29, 2013. The company was founded i ...

) * November 2005 – The British space agency BNSC (

UK-DMC UK-DMC or UK-DMC 1, also known as BNSCSAT-1, was a British satellite that formed part of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). It was built by Surrey Satellite Technology, who operated it via DMC International Imaging on behalf of the Br ...

) with the company DMCii * May 2007 – China National Space Administration ( CNSA) — (the FY, SJ, ZY satellite series) * ? –

DMC International Imaging DMC International Imaging (DMCii) is the company that manages the Disaster Monitoring Constellation for the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters. It also sells satellite imaging services under contract and manages the operations of ...

* ? – The Algerian space agency Centre National des Techniques Spatiales — ( ALSAT-1) * ? – The Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency — (NigeriaSat) * ? – The Turkish space agency TUBITAK — (

BILSAT-1 BILSAT-1 (formerly just ''BILSAT'') was an Earth observation satellite designed and developed by TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute (TÜBİTAK UZAY) and produced in Turkey as part of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) project ...

) * ? – The British company BNSC/Surrey Satellite Technology Limited — (

) * ? – The British company BNSC/Qinetiq — ( Top Sat) * 2012 German Aerospace Center ( DLR) - (

TerraSAR-X TerraSAR-X is an imaging radar Earth observation satellite, a joint venture being carried out under a public-private-partnership between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Astrium, EADS Astrium. The exclusive commercial exploitation rights ar ...

TanDEM-X TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement) is a German twin satellite mission using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR). It is developed in a public-private partnership between the German Aerospace centre (DLR In ...

) * 2012 Korea Aerospace Research Institute ( KARI) - (Arirang 3, 3A, 5) * 2012 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brazil ( INPE) * 2012 European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (

EUMETSAT The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) is an intergovernmental organisation created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 30 European Member States. EUMETSAT's primary ...

) * 2013

Russian Space Agency The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space flights, cosmonautics programs, and aerospace research. Originating from ...

( Resurs-DK No.1, Resurs-P No.1, Kanopus-V, Meteor-M1) * 2016 Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities (ABAE) - ( VRSS-1) the live satellites and their instrumentalities were: The high resolution and very high resolution radar sensors of

(decommissioned in April), RISAT-1, RADARSAT-1 & 2,

and

; the high resolution and very high resolution optical sensors of SPOT satellites4 & 5,

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...

5 & 7,

PROBA Proba may refer to: ; people * Faltonia Betitia Proba, fourth-century Latin poet * Anicia Faltonia Proba, her niece and the recipient of letters from Saint Augustine and Saint John Chrysostom ; places * Próba, Łódź Voivodeship, village in the ...

UK-DMC 2 UK-DMC 2 is a British Earth imaging satellite which is operated by DMC International Imaging. It was constructed by Surrey Satellite Technology, based on the SSTL-100 satellite bus. It is part of Britain's contribution to the Disaster Monitoring ...

KOMPSAT-2 KOMPSAT-2 (Korean Multi-purpose Satellite-2), also known as Arirang-2, is a South Korean multipurpose Earth observation satellite. It was launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia at 07:45:43 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC (16:05:43 Korea Stan ...

, IRS-P5,

Resourcesat-2 Resourcesat-2 is a follow on mission to Resourcesat-1 and the eighteenth Indian Remote Sensing Programme, Indian remote sensing satellite built by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The new satellite provides the same services as the or ...

, Oceansat-2, Cartosat-2, IMS-1, and RapidEye; the medium and low resolution optical sensors of POES,

, and SAC-C. Furthermore, specific agreements with other entities, including corporations, allow the Charter access to additional products of high and very high resolution from satellites such as the Formosat series,

GeoEye GeoEye Inc. (formerly Orbital Imaging Corporation, or ORBIMAGE) was an American commercial satellite imagery company based in Herndon, Virginia. GeoEye was merged into the DigitalGlobe corporation on January 29, 2013. The company was founded i ...

IKONOS IKONOS was a commercial Earth observation satellite, and was the first to collect publicly available high-resolution imagery at 1- and 4-meter resolution. It collected multispectral (MS) and panchromatic (PAN) imagery. The capability to observe ...

, QuickBird, and

WorldView A worldview (also world-view) or is said to be the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and Perspective (cognitive), point of view. However, whe ...

. In 2014, the charter was activated 41 times for disasters in 30 countries. In that year the live satellites and their instrumentalities included: The high and very high resolution

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

sensors of Risat-1, RADARSAT-2,

, and

and Sentinel-1A; the optical high and very high resolution sensors of

7 and 8,

series 5, 6, and 7, Pléiades 1A and 1B,

1, SJ-9A, GF-1,

, IRS-P5 (

Cartosat The Cartosat is a series of Indian optical Earth observation satellites built and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The Cartosat series is a part of the Indian Remote Sensing Program. They are used for Earth's resource ...

-1), Cartosat-2,

, Oceansat-2, RapidEye, Kanopus-V, and Resurs-P, and the

HDTV High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it ref ...

camera mounted the Kibo module of the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

; and the medium and low optical sensors of POES,

, FY-3C, the

Metop MetOp (Meteorological Operational satellite) is a series of three polar-orbiting meteorological satellites developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites ...

series, the first two

Meteosat The Meteosat series of satellites are geostationary meteorological satellites operated by EUMETSAT under the Meteosat Transition Programme (MTP) and the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) program. The MTP program was established to ensure the oper ...

generations, and Meteor-M. Specific agreements with other entities allow for the usage of the Formosat,

, QuickBird, and

WorldViews A worldview (also world-view) or is said to be the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. However, when two parties view the sa ...

satellites, which have high and very high resolution. Archival data from defunct satellites such as

, ERS, CBERS, IRS-1C, Astra 1D, IRS P4, P6, IMS-1, RADARSAT-1, SAC-C, SPOT 1-3 & 4,

-5 and NigeriaSat are also available.

Major events resulting in activation

This is very much a partial list; the 500th activation of the Charter was on 1 August 2016. * 2004: The Charter was activated for the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

by the Indian Space Research Organisation (

). * 14 January 2010: The French Civil Protection authorities,

Public Safety Canada Public Safety Canada (PS; , SP), legally incorporated as the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (PSEPC), is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for (most) matters of public safety, emergency management, nat ...

, the American Earthquake Hazards Programme of

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March ...

and the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti requested a post-event map of Haiti, two days after the

2010 Haiti earthquake The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (departm ...

, via the Space and Major Disasters Charter. * 22 February 2011: Both COGIC (French Civil Protection) and

requested the activation of the Charter on the behalf of

MCDEM The National Emergency Management Agency (; Māori language, Māori: ''Te Rākau Whakamarumaru'') is the public service department of New Zealand responsible for providing leadership and support around national, local and regional emergencies. ...

New Zealand, thus readily providing satellite imagery for aid and rescue services following the

2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. New Zealand Daylight Time, local time (23:51 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the Canterbury Region ...

. * 12 March 2011: Japan, through its space agency

, requested the activation of the Charter to help in managing the aftermath of

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

. * 8 November 2013: The Charter was activated by Philippine authorities as super-typhoon Haiyan made landfall. * 11 March 2014: The Charter was activated by Chinese authorities to aid in the search for

which disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport. As of 2025, the aircraft was still lost. * 9 October 2014: The Charter was activated by the

on behalf of

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to support national se ...

to monitor the

(in

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

, specifically), the first time its space assets have been used in an epidemiological role. * 4 May 2016:

activated the Charter for the Fort McMurray Wildfire. * 13 August 2016: The Charter was activated by the U.S. Geological Survey in response to the 2016 Louisiana floods. * 24 August 2017: The Charter was activated by the U.S. Geological Survey for

Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey was a devastating tropical cyclone that made landfall in Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cy ...

. *5 September 2017: The Charter was activated by the Comisión Nacional de Emergencias in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

for

Hurricane Irma Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Hurricane Maria, Maria two weeks later. At the time, it was considered ...

; Haiti and the United States followed suit shortly thereafter. *19 September 2017: The Charter was activated in the aftermath of

2017 Central Mexico earthquake The 2017 Puebla earthquake, also known as 19S, struck at 13:14 Central Time Zone, CDT (18:14 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC) on 19 September 2017 with an estimated magnitude of 7.1 and strong shaking for about 20 seconds. Its epicenter wa ...

. *20 September 2017. The Charter was activated by the Comisión Nacional de Emergencias CNE in the

for

Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was an extremely powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that affected the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, which accounted for 2,975 of the 3,059 deaths. It is the ...

. *22 November 2017. The Charter was activated by the

Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales The National Space Activities Commission ( Spanish: ''Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales'', CONAE) is the civilian agency of the government of Argentina in charge of the national space programme. History Sociedad Argentina Interp ...

due to the disappearance of ARA ''San Juan''. *August 2020. The Charter was activated by the Centre Opérationnel de Gestion Interministérielle des Crises (COGIC) for the 2020 Beirut explosions.

Notes

References

External links

Official site

Text of the charterInternational Charter infographic by ESA
{{DEFAULTSORT:International Charter On Space And Major Disasters Space treaties Treaties concluded in 1999 Treaties entered into force in 2000 Disaster management Space photography and videography Earth observation projects

Successive signatories and satellite assets

Major events resulting in activation

See also

Notes

References

External links