This proposal introduces a pioneering new on-orbit services system concept which would rapidly industrialize the European space ecosystem, making Europe a world leader in robotized and sustainable modular infrastructures as well as reusable launchers, with additional competitive benefits for a sustainable European digital industry and sovereign cloud autonomy. European space technology has now reached a level of maturity that makes possible a revolutionary – yet feasible – endeavour: the installation of internet data centres in orbit, in order to reduce the exponential impact of digital technology on energy consumption and on climate warming. The installation of large modular space infrastructures with robotic assembly, megawatt level space-based solar power, high throughput optical communications, low cost and reusable launchers, is now within the European space industry’s capability. The goal of the proposed study is to demonstrate that placing future data centre capacity in orbit, using solar energy outside the earth’s atmosphere, will substantially lower the carbon footprint of digitalization. Space data centres could therefore become an active contributor to the EC Green Deal objective of carbon neutrality by 2050, which would justify the investment required to develop and install such a large space infrastructure system. It would also strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty and autonomy, for a sustainable and prosperous digital future. Given the ambition and huge potential impact of this project, which would become a major European flagship program, a broad system-level feasibility and business study is necessary. For that purpose, the ASCEND consortium has brought together major players in the fields of environment analysis (Carbone 4, Vito), data centres architecture, hardware and software (Orange, CloudFerro, HPE), space systems development (Thales Alenia Space, Airbus, DLR), and access to space (ArianeGroup).

Cloud-based services have grown from basic computing services to complex ecosystems, comprising (virtual) infrastructure, business processes and application code. These advanced services also increasingly leverage the usage of Artificial Intelligence, including Machine Learning or Natural Language Processing techniques, raising the complexity even higher. Due to the cascade of dependencies among the different products and services, the need arose to bring more agility to the certification process of cloud-based services, e.g., using continuous monitoring and assessment, as evidenced by references to it in the certifications of the EU Cybersecurity Act (EU CSA). To transform the continuous assessment and certification concept into the complete realization of a Certification-as-a-Service (CaaS), several challenges need to be solved: 1) current proposed proofs of concepts for continuous monitoring lack interoperability at technology level, 2) the adoption of cloud and edge computing and the incorporation of regulations on specific topics or domains, such as AI, put significant strain on companies to comply with a multitude of different security schemes, 3) existing market fragmentation for continuous certification (scope, methodologies), hinder transparency and accountability in the provision of European cloud services, 4),smart tools and models need to be adopted to ease the agile application and implementation of the CaaS concept reducing complexity in the whole cloud certification value chain easing the adoption of CaaS by the different stakeholders. To overcome these challenges, the design and implementation of the EMERALD CaaS solution leverages the H2020 project MEDINA’s outcomes and advances them to TRL 7 in the EMERALD core. Two PoCs will be provided; one for composite certification and one for mapping requirements to upcoming AI certification schemes. EMERALD will pave the road towards CaaS for continuous certification of harmonized cybersecurity schemes.

The EOSC-hub project creates the integration and management system of the future European Open Science Cloud that delivers a catalogue of services, software and data from the EGI Federation, EUDAT CDI, INDIGO-DataCloud and major research e-infrastructures. This integration and management system (the Hub) builds on mature processes, policies and tools from the leading European federated e-Infrastructures to cover the whole life-cycle of services, from planning to delivery. The Hub aggregates services from local, regional and national e-Infrastructures in Europe, Africa, Asia, Canada and South America. The Hub acts as a single contact point for researchers and innovators to discover, access, use and reuse a broad spectrum of resources for advanced data-driven research. Through the virtual access mechanism, more scientific communities and users have access to services supporting their scientific discovery and collaboration across disciplinary and geographical boundaries. The project also improves skills and knowledge among researchers and service operators by delivering specialised trainings and by establishing competence centres to co-create solutions with the users. In the area of engagement with the private sector, the project creates a Joint Digital Innovation Hub that stimulates an ecosystem of industry/SMEs, service providers and researchers to support business pilots, market take-up and commercial boost strategies. EOSC-hub builds on existing technology already at TRL 8 and addresses the need for interoperability by promoting the adoption of open standards and protocols. By mobilizing e-Infrastructures comprising more than 300 data centres worldwide and 18 pan-European infrastructures, this project is a ground-breaking milestone for the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud.

IMPRESSIVE project focuses in developing a universal-relocatable platform for real time management of marine pollution events in the wider area of EU harbors and their vicinities, easy to manipulate and use from the harbor control post. EO monitoring and advanced modeling of these areas are of great interest as the large ship activity, ship traffic and ship refueling, addresses them as highly risky for pollutant spills and waste waters. The product will be consisting of integrated operational services relying on: * A satellite monitoring service processing Sentinel 1, 2, 3 satellite images and Copernicus Marine products to identify polluting events (oil spills and waste water discharges), to generate alerts and provide their position and features in near real time. * A software package that once an event is located will provide forecast of its drift and fate, based on coupling between the pollutant fate and transport and the hydrodynamic numerical models, supporting decision making and the maneuvering of the autonomous vehicles with advanced positioning technologies. * A set of risk mapping services based on the integration of time series of remote sensing and modeling products. * A set of specifically designed Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) and a drone (UAV) equipped with remote sensing instruments and a sampler device (on board of the ASV), remotely operated from the Headquarter Control Post for operational monitoring missions and/or accidental/illegal oil spills and other polluting events. * A local rapid-response integrated system of near real time satellite/ASV/drone/model/forecast/risk mapping survey information and products, to support/improve the decision making process in any particular spilling event that may occur inside or outside the harbor or in near coastal areas. The product will be accompanied by an action protocol and will be tested & validated as an operational pilot in Puerto de la Luz (Gran Canaria), Taranto port (Italy), Rafina port (Greece).

The CENTURION project will critically advance applications of AI methodology to the Big Earth Data challenge. Through mature, award-winning, Petascale-proven European datacube technology, all Copernicus data together with contributing missions and third party’s EO, climate, and thematic data sets will be homogenized into Analysis and Fusion Ready spatio-temporal data hypercubes offered through strictly standards-based interfaces. CENTURION will become a partner of the EarthServer Datacube federation thereby making its results seamlessly available for several DIASes as well as enabling free and open research and paving a road for commercial uses. Awards-winning AI platform operating throughout all cycles (ranging from data discovery to generation of actionable insights) will enable rapid use case development and will provide assured execution of analytical tasks at any scale in hybrid cloud environments. Reusable AI Knowledge Packs (novel approach to AI) will establish a method for creation of shrink-wrapped purpose-oriented analytics tools. The project will create several knowledge packs for at least 5 use cases. External contributions for future AI knowledge packs will be encouraged through outreach, trainings, and support. The CENTURION project success measures and KPIs will incorporate technical, economic, environmental, safety, security and social criteria, addressing the principal barriers that impede accelerated market uptake of Copernicus data and services and will demonstrate commercial value of the created innovations by establishing novel products and business models further described in the proposal that prioritise pertinent industry use cases in the scope of the project. By combining and advancing leading European tools in two critical fields, AI and Big Data Cubes, the project is key to European technology independence and monetisation of Copernicus Data.