Some unexpected encounters, such as that between Pierre Cardin and Thales Alenia Space, open up new avenues for raising public awareness of the urgent need to develop a profitable and virtuous ecology.
The key role of satellites in surveying Earth and the impacts of climate change on its environment was in the spotlight recently at the Prix Bulles Cardin awards — named for the Palais Bulles or “Bubble Palace” owned by the fashion house’s founder Pierre Cardin — which each year distinguish five works, personalities or actions seeking to foster sustainable development. On this occasion, House of Pierre Cardin and Thales Alenia Space underlined their shared belief in the need to focus attention on the climate emergency, notably through satellite imagery.
The Palais Bulles in Théoule-sur-Mer honored satellites built just a few miles away in the clean rooms of Thales Alenia Space’s facility in Cannes. Projections of images acquired by the European Copernicus program’s Sentinel satellites illustrated a range of climate phenomena, from ice melt in Alaska to deforestation and rising sea level in the Maldives.
Space sentinels
The Sentinel satellites keep a daily watch over our planet, delivering precious data to the scientific community and to first responders in the event of natural disasters, while also helping to gage the effectiveness of national initiatives designed to curb global warming.
Thales Alenia Space has worked hand in hand with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the entire European space industry since the start of the European Commission’s Copernicus program, in which it is playing a key role on 11 out of 12 missions. https://www.youtube.com/embed/m-161FJVEJM?rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thalesgroup.com
Thales Alenia Space is aboard five of the six new-generation Copernicus missions, leading three as prime contractor (CIMR, ROSE-L and CHIME), and supplying the payloads for two more (CO2M and CRISTAL). These new satellites are geared toward measuring human-induced atmospheric CO2 emissions, monitoring thickness of sea ice and snow covering it, supporting new optimized services for sustainable farming and biodiversity, observing sea-surface temperature and salinity as well as sea ice concentration, and strengthening land monitoring and emergency management services.
Thales Alenia Space’s involvement in the Copernicus program illustrates its Space for Life vision to build a better and more sustainable life on Earth. Some unexpected encounters, such as that between Pierre Cardin and Thales Alenia Space, open up new avenues for raising public awareness of the urgent need to develop a profitable and virtuous ecology.