This paper provides an overview of the main activities and results of HYPERHEALTH project (funded by the Italian Space Agency). Specific focus of this paper is hyperspectral PRISMA data exploitation, mostly as regards PRISMA-based atmospheric constituent estimation and allergenic vegetation monitoring.

In the era of Space Economy, satellite services represent a key element that must be valued and promoted by institutions at local and global level, because they can ensure sustainable economic development and generate benefits for citizens and society. For this reason, they have been recognized among the top strategic priorities of the Italian Space Agency, which deals with the implementation of national space policies.With the main objective of stimulating the growth of the national downstream ecosystem, the Agency has proposed and started the I4DP – Innovation for Downstream Preparation program, which, through cyclical initiatives, offers support to public and private users for the creation of innovative space solutions helping the processes of management and development of the territory and its resources. This work aims to provide a complete picture of the state-of-the-art of the I4DP program and its future prospects, showing the potential effects to support the entire Italian community along the entire value chain of space services and the downstream economic sector, with a focus on selected projects within some identified topics of particular interest such as infrastructure monitoring, the fight against climate change and the adaptation to its effects, precision farming, the sustainability of cities.

The downstream space sector in Italy is confronted with distinctive challenges, marked by a fragmented landscape, inadequate stakeholder interactions, underdeveloped business planning, and a critical need for improved industrial and financial acumen. In response to these challenges, the Italian Space Agency has taken a central role in addressing these issues through the establishment of the Downstream and Integrated Application Unit. The primary objective of this unit is to elevate the competitiveness of national Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), industries, and academia operating in the space sector. Within this strategic framework, the PRISMA SCIENZA program emerges as a pivotal initiative, aiming to harness the scientific data generated by the PRISMA mission for the improvement of the Italian Community. Specifically, the program is designed to facilitate the complete exploitation of mission data while concurrently fostering the advancement of Italian expertise in the hyperspectral remote sensing sector.By operating within this comprehensive framework, the PRISMA SCIENZA program contributes to the overarching goal of addressing challenges within the Italian downstream space sector. It not only serves as a mechanism for maximizing the utilization of mission data but also plays a vital role in promoting the growth and proficiency of the Italian space industry, aligning with broader strategic objectives set forth by the Italian Space Agency.Aim of this paper is to analyze the effects the PRISMA SCIENZA program brought to the Italian industrial and scientific communities.

The scarcity of a sufficiently large and representative hyperspectral image dataset is a substantial obstacle to the effective development of algorithms for remote sensing applications. Hyperspectral images can provide rich spectral information for various tasks, such as land cover classification, vegetation monitoring, and environmental assessment. However, the limited availability of diverse and well-annotated hyperspectral datasets hinders the development and optimization of these models in this domain. For this purpose, the generation of synthetic hyperspectral images has emerged as a pivotal area of research.This paper aims to introduce a preliminary analysis of various AI-based methodologies specifically crafted to generate synthetic PRISMA hyperspectral images derived from Sentinel-2 data. By exploring innovative approaches, this study aims to develop novel techniques for creating synthetic datasets, providing valuable insights into the potential of synthetic hyperspectral imagery for algorithm training and evaluation in the absence of extensive real-world hyperspectral datasets.

HYPERHEALTH project is co-funded by Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the framework of the "PRISMA Scienza" program. The program supports R&D projects proposed by experts in hyperspectral remote sensing sector from national public research institutions to industries, also in the framework of international partnerships. The aim is designing, developing and testing innovative methods, techniques and algorithms for exploitation of hyperspectral data, with reliable perspectives as to engineering and pre-operational development, thus contributing to the improvement of socio-economic benefits of the end-user community. This paper outlines HYPERHEALTH main goals and activities.

Space technologies and applications have the potential to significantly benefit European society and economy, addressing major societal challenges while bolstering synergies between public and private sectors. These technologies can stimulate economic growth and spawn new markets by fostering the development of innovative products and services tailored to meet user needs. However, the downstream space market poses unique challenges due to its disjointed nature, characterized by insufficient interactions between stakeholders, underdeveloped business planning, and the need for a stronger industrial and financial acumen. The Italian space industry, primarily comprised of SMEs (80%), encapsulates these issues, necessitating a robust ecosystem to streamline the space venture value chain.Italy has a strategic advantage, being one of the few nations with a comprehensive space industry production chain, spanning both upstream and downstream sectors. The Italian Space Agency is central to this development, having established the Downstream and Integrated Application Unit to enhance the competitiveness of national SMEs, industries, and academia. This initiative supports the development of space-based products and services, not just through financial aid, but by serving as a liaison between the space industry and traditional markets, fostering mutually beneficial interactions.

Earth Observation derived land cover products can provide an advance insight into coastal ecosystem monitoring to capture the fragmentation and changes of land surface. The work addresses the testing of consolidated classification algorithms on hyperspectral data in synergy with SAR and field data for the definition of biological and geophysical characteristics of surface coverage components to produce a detailed Dynamic Land Cover map. We obtain reliable land cover and land use information identifying different types of vegetation and soils condition and indicators of biogeophysical surface processes in the testing costal area of the Gulf of Oristano (Italy). The results offer further classification of specific land cover targets representing a contribution for the production of land cover products at different levels of thematic resolution to improve downstream application services and to support land policies and management.

The Italian Space Agency (ASI) promotes the use of space assets to address not only scientific research questions, but also civilian applications and to the social-economic benefit of citizens. In the current scenario, when efforts are made to achieve the United Nations' 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the COSMO-SkyMed data exploitation initiatives launched by ASI - “Open Call for Science” and “Open Call for National Industry/Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)” - show increasing statistics proving that users are exploring how this state-of-the-art space technology can be used to address several applications feeding into SDGs. A selection of the successful experiences is discussed in relation to infrastructure monitoring, environmental assessment, understanding of and mitigation to natural hazards and climate change. The ASI's initiatives also helped companies to develop new businesses and cooperate with local administrations to address sustainability and land management issues.

The need to protect, monitor and evaluate the impact of natural phenomena on the environment, in recent years, plays a role of considerable importance for society and our planet. In the last decades, Italian Space Agency (ASI) invested significant effort in Earth Observation (EO) using COSMO-SkyMed radar satellites (Constellation of Small satellites for Mediterranean basin Observation). Since the beginning of the operational life of this mission, ASI promoted the issue of specific initiatives, based on the exploitation of COSMO-SkyMed data. Innovation and research have allowed a profound change in the data acquisition and acquisition methodologies coming to develop increasingly complex and innovative technologies. The focus of this work is to provide an overview of the innovative products and services proposed and marketed by NeMeA Sistemi srl. NeMeA Sistemi developed new and innovative technologies using integrated data for the monitoring and protection of environmental and anthropogenic health, in coastal and nearby areas. The 3xA project is aimed at spotting environmental changes through time in selected geographical regions. Taking as input two SAR acquisitions at time t1and t2, the acquisitions are firstly pre-processed, homogenised and finally undergo a completely self-supervised algorithm which takes advantage of DNNs to classify changed/unchanged areas. Results are later validated against real environmental changes by means of the SardOS's output data. This method shows promising results in automatically producing a change map from two input SAR images.

This study presents a novel bridge monitoring approach for transport assets, based on the synergistic use of high-resolution (X-band) SAR imagery. A multi-temporal SAR Interferometry analysis is performed to detect potential issues related to the Rochester Bridge, located in Rochester, UK. A displacement map for the structure was produced using space-based SAR measurements acquired by the Italian constellation COSMO-SkyMed over the period 2017–2019, provided by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the framework of the Open-call for Science Project “Motib - ID742”. The outcomes of this study demonstrate that multi-temporal InSAR remote sensing techniques can be applied to complement information from non-destructive ground-based methods (e.g., ground-penetrating radars, laser scanners, accelerometers etc.), paving the way for future integrated approaches in the smart monitoring of infrastructure assets.

In recent years, successful applications of the Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) for the monitoring of subsidence and deformations in transport infrastructures have been reported in the literature. The main advantage of this technique compared to other non -destructive surveying methodologies is in the possibility to perform fast network-level surveys as well as the provision of time-series of the displacements by multi-temporal data acquisitions. Given the medium ground resolution, C-band imagery are usually not employed for transport infrastructure monitoring as it is considered unlikely to obtain sufficiently accurate information. However, the use of medium resolution SAR data has not been thoroughly investigated until now and is still an open challenge. This study presents a novel approach for transport assets monitoring, based on the synergistic use of medium resolution (C-Band) and high resolution (X-Band) SAR imagery. To this effect, a multi-temporal SAR Interferometry analysis of high and medium-resolution datasets is performed on a runway of the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport in Rome, Italy. The data were acquired by the Scntinel-l A and the COSMO-SkyMed missions, respectively. A comparison between the results from medium and high-resolution datasets demonstrates the viability of using multi-frequency SAR imagery, and pave the way to the development of new methodologies for the monitoring of transport infrastructures.

COSMO-SkyMed (Constellation of Small satellites for Mediterranean basin Observation) is a fundamental, powerful asset to Earth Observation field, in which Italy plays a crucial role at world level. It is an Earth Observation Dual Use System (civil and military) conceived to fulfill both civilian and defense needs, enhancing international partnerships through its Interoperability, Expandability and Multi-sensor (IEM) features and operational practices. It provides products and services for global environmental monitoring, scientific and commercial purposes and strategic applications (Defense and National security). The aim of this paper is to present the status and the result of the COSMO-SkyMed Mission after five years of operability.

COSMO-SkyMed is a constellation of four radar satellites for Earth Observation (EO), funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Italian Ministry of Defence (I-MoD) and conducted by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in conjunction with I-MoD. It has been entirely designed, developed and produced in Italy. Thanks to the realization of this system, one of the most challenging space-borne imaging radar system designed and built in Europe, Italy is playing a key role in the international context. This dual-use space system, capable of the highest operational capability in the world (mainly thanks to its four satellites, high revisit and response time, high resolution), was conceived to serve a wide EO community, proving high-definition data in all-time (day/night) and all-weather conditions to institutions, defense organizations and private companies. Currently, all the four satellites have completed their nominal operational life (5.25 years), but the constellation is still fully operative, provides data with the required image quality and today the expected residual lifetime is of more than one year also for the older satellite (more years for the most recent ones). This paper is focused on all the strategies and measures applied to increase this operational lifetime.

COSMO-SkyMed is an Italian Dual-Use (Civilian and Defence) Earth Observation Space System composed of four satellites with an X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). It is conceived for global environmental monitoring, scientific and commercial purposes and strategic applications (Defence and National Security). During the last years, thanks to a continuous monitoring of user feedbacks, some aspects of the interface between COSMO-SkyMed System and external users have been identified to be improved. New services and new tools are intended to be introduced in order to make the interface more efficient. In this paper an overview of these new services will be shown, mainly concern with the Customer Service activities and the data utilization by civilian users.

In 2003, the Italian Space Agency (ASI), supported by the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) and the Ministry of Defense (It-MoD), commissioned and funded the COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) mission, an Earth Observation Dual Use System (civil and military) for the monitoring of Resources, Natural Disasters and National Security. COSMO-SkyMed system, which represents the Italian biggest investment in the Earth Observation (EO) field, was realized by TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space Italy) as the industrial prime contractor for the Space Segment, and Telespazio as prime contractor for the Ground Segment, logistic and operations. For what concern the commercial distribution of COSMO-SkyMed products, ASI and Telespazio have constituted the e-GEOS company.

COSMO-SkyMed is a Dual-Use (Civilian and Defence) End-to-End Earth Observation System aimed at establishing a global service supplying provision of data, products and services relevant to a wide range of applications, such as Risk Management, Scientific and Commercial Applications and Defence Applications. The system consists of a constellation of four LEO mid-sized satellites, each equipped with a multi-mode high-resolution SAR operating at X-band. Three out of four COSMO-SkyMed satellites have been successfully launched, while the remaining satellite will be deployed within 2010. The first two satellites have been launched in 2007 while COSMO-SkyMed-3 has been launched on October 25th2008. Since its launch COSMO-SkyMed-3 has been put in an orbital position at 67,5° from COSMO-SkyMed-2, in the so-called “one-day interferometry configuration”. Since then COSMO-SkyMed-2 and COSMO-SkyMed-3 are providing a interferometric pairs for a wide range of applications.