Eye in the Sky Technology

Jacek Studencki, Chairman of the Management Board of Techmex SA, the joint owner of Poland’s Satellite Center, talks to Beata Gołębiewska.

Is Poland’s Satellite Center ready for international cooperation within NATO?
The Satellite Center for Regional Operations (SCOR) was launched in Poland in October 2004. The Satellite Center is equipped with state-of-the-art technology reserved exclusively for the U.S. military sector until 1994. The Center is part of the Techmex Capital Group and U.S. company GeoEye is its technological partner and technology provider. The opening of the Satellite Center was made possible after the U.S. State Department allowed the transfer of advanced earth observation technologies to Poland. The Satellite Center is one of 18 satellite management centers around the world and is the only facility of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. Even though the only signal it currently receives comes from the high-resolution Ikonos satellite, it can obtain data from other satellites and other ground stations as well. Our Satellite Center offers potential benefits to both the military and civilian sectors.

What benefits are those?
Access to high-resolution spatial data has become vitally important to many areas of the economy, from land use planning and infrastructure to telecommunications to environmental protection, agriculture, crisis management and defense. It has been estimated that around 80 percent of all data has a spatial component. Satellite photographs and orthophotomaps (satellite or aerial photographs with mapping coordinates) developed from these data give accurate, up-to-date and standardized earth imagery. This is why the military sector around the world has been using satellite technologies on a wide scale for years. Obviously the United States pioneered this field and the U.S. armed forces still make extensive use of satellite photographs. U.S. company, DigitalGlobe, a world leader in earth observation technologies, earns no less than 68 percent of its revenue from the defense and intelligence industries. I am sad to have to tell you that this is not the case in Poland where the Ministry of Defense seems completely oblivious to the opportunities the Polish Satellite Center offers.

This is surprising seeing as the Military Property Agency is the other owner of the Satellite Center.
I cannot think of any rational explanation as to why the Polish Armed Forces do not order satellite images from a facility partly owned by the Treasury. This is completely beyond us. After all, the Satellite Center is a modern receiving station with superb equipment and Techmex has all the know-how, experience and technological potential needed to prepare advanced geoinformation products. In the civilian sector, satellite data is used to compile orthophotomaps, numerical terrain models, 3-D building models and a variety of vector maps. The Techmex Group has a Satellite Image Library covering over 700,000 sq km of the earth’s surface. We have ISO and WSK (Internal Control System) certificates to confirm our qualifications. The Military Center for Standardization, Quality and Codification has authorized us to provide services and goods to NATO member states. We have also obtained the NATO Commercial and Government Entity Code (NCAGE). So Techmex is qualified to bid for tenders limited to goods and services providers authorized to supply NATO. The quality of our remote sensing services is recognized as first rate by the coordinators of the military Multinational Geospatial Co-production Program (MGCP). We have been developing vector maps in compliance with MGCP standards since March 2007.

What are Techmex’s plans for 2009?
The company will consistently carry out its development strategy in the GIS sector, regardless of the difficult macroeconomic situation global markets face. We have been expanding the range of products and services we offer that rely on spatial data obtained from various sources. We have been a technological partner of DigitalGlobe since September 2008. This company has been expanding on the European market by building a distribution network of satellite imagery for the civilian sector.
Techmex has also been carrying out an investment program on photogrammetry. The company is also finalizing the purchase of a state-of-the-art Vexcel Microsoft digital camera so that highly accurate aerial photographs and orthophotomaps can be taken. We would like to see geoinformation technologies aid the economic development and defense potential of Poland and other NATO countries. We are flexible and responsive to the needs of customers from Poland and elsewhere.

The interview was published in a special issue of The Warsaw Voice: "Poland - 10 years w NATO" in February 2009.