Copernicus is the European Union's Earth observation programme coordinated and managed by the European Union (EU) in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), the EU Member States and EU Agencies.

It aims at achieving a global, continuous, autonomous, high quality, wide range Earth observation capacity. Providing accurate, timely and easily accessible information to, among other things, improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change, and ensure civil security.

The objective is to use vast amount of global data from satellites and from ground-based, airborne and seaborne measurement systems to produce timely and quality information, services and knowledge, and to provide autonomous and independent access to information in the domains of environment and security on a global level in order to help service providers, public authorities and other international organizations improve the quality of life for the citizens of Europe. In other words, it pulls together all the information obtained by the Copernicus environmental satellites, air and ground stations and sensors to provide a comprehensive picture of the "health" of Earth.

COPERNICAL.COM is the space professionals networking portal and is aimed at facilitating communication exchange amongst professionals involved in the space industry and space science fields. It provides a site for all participants in these fields including students, engineers, managers and decision-makers to present their activities and discuss issues in an open forum across the world. It also provides free and open data resources for space companies and space missions and space-related science and technology. If you are looking for information, wishing to build teams, or just want to share your experiences or projects, then this is the place for you!

COPERNICAL connects people, companies, missions and projects in the space industry.

• Find relevant space industry news,
• Connect with people with related interests in space projects, space technology and science.
• Collaborate in secure private and public Groups sharing documents, files and images.
• Find useful information with our directory of world-wide space organisations, projects and products.
• Find solutions and professional information by participating in private discussions or group forums,
• Publish and share your views in your own blogs.

You are welcome to participate to our effort to provide the most complete and relevant data for space science, space technology, space missions ...

Join us today!

If you want to know where ESA spacecraft are and how they are linked to the ground, then ESA has a fantastic website.

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a volunteer-run research and outreach organization in the Boston area that works to mitigate existential risks facing humanity, particularly the risks from artificial intelligence (AI).

The institute was founded in March 2014. FLI operates grassroots-style to recruit volunteers and younger scholars from the local community in the Boston area.

The FLI mission is to catalyze and support research and initiatives for safeguarding life and developing optimistic visions of the future, including positive ways for humanity to steer its own course considering new technologies and challenges FLI is particularly focused on the potential risks to humanity from the development of human-level artificial intelligence.

It was founded by MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn among others, and includes cosmologist Stephen Hawking and entrepreneur Elon Musk among others on the board of advisers.

Pocket Spacecraft is a low cost, open source, open access, mass space exploration system that anyone can use.

It is aimed to open space exploration to everyone. Its aim is to send an expedition to the moon and explore the solar system.

Sodern is a French company based in Limeil-Brévannes, near Paris in Ile-de-France, specialized in space instrumentation, optics and neutron analyzers.

Sodern activity started in the neutron area, by designing neutron sources for the French deterrent force.  In the late 1960s, it began to diversify into optical sensors and advanced spacecraft instrumentation.

Nowadays (2015) the company is active in the following fields:

• Spatial Instrumentation: activities cover several ranges of space instruments.
• Stars Trackers
• Optical Instrumentation
• Strip Filters

Copenhagen Suborbitals is a Danish non-profit aerospace organization that has constructed and launched several privately built rockets.

The organization's main goal is to develop relatively inexpensive forms of suborbital manned spaceflight outside government programs and the influence of large, for-profit corporations. Founded in 2008, the project has accomplished a successful sea launch of an experimental hybrid rocket dubbed HEAT-1X carrying a full-scale human model. The test was performed in June 2011 from a seagoing mobile launch platform in the Baltic Sea, but had to be aborted after 21 seconds at an altitude of 2.8 km when the rocket began to veer off course. On June 23, 2013, the team successfully launched the actively guided SAPPHIRE-1 rocket to an altitude of 8.5 kilometers.

In addition to their main stated goal to achieve suborbital manned spaceflight, Copenhagen Suborbitals has also focused on fundraising solely through donations and sponsorships.

Space Angels Network is an angel investing network which connects investors and entrepreneurs to encourage private investment in commercial space, aerospace, and aviation startups.

Its members typically invest in early-stage companies which are not yet ready for venture capital.

By focusing on industry instead of geography, the subject-matter expertise of both the management team and members allows Space Angels Network to evaluate deals that would never have made it past the initial screening of more traditional angel groups. Investments are typically companies with experienced teams pursuing large markets with a unique product, service, or business model in the following fields:

• Satellite (telecom, GPS navigation, geospatial imaging, weather observation)
• Transportation (vehicles, tourism, platforms, components, services, operations infrastructure)
• Biomedical & life sciences
• Microgravity research
• Space habitats
• Space debris removal & satellite refueling
• Manufacturing, mining, and construction
• Space energy
• UAVs and Aircraft

FFD (Final Frontier Design) has been developing space suits since 2006. Our latest, 3rd generation garment features a single pressure layer, combining high-strength materials and low-torque mobility joints in a safe, light-weight, cost-efficient suit designed specifically for the needs of civilian space access.

OPALS (Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science) is an optical communication in outer space experiment developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the International Space Station.

It is testing the potential for using an optical laser to transmit data, at much higher rates than traditional space-based RF communications, to Earth from space. It was launched to the orbital station aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on 18 April 2014, as part of the unpressurized payload cargo of the SpaceX CRS-3 Dragon spacecraft.

The mission has been considered a success as of December 2014. There were two major accomplishments:

• A massive speed increase taking 3.5 seconds to download a video that traditionally would have taken 10 minutes.
• Ability to re-acquire tracking after signal was lost due to cloud cover.