THEOS creates new roles for Thailand | Bangkok Post: tech

When the THEOS satellite went fully operational last year, it changed Thailand's role from being just a ground station and data provider to that of a satellite operator and owner, allowing for a more flexible use of satellite imagery and broadening the application of satellite images for economic, social and national security purposes.

Surachai Ratanasermpong, Deputy Executive Director of the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency.

THEOS also allows tourists to access satellite maps in the form of paper maps, while the satellite's web site will provide information that is more up to date than that provided by Google Earth.

The government spent 6.4 billion baht on its first Earth observation satellite called THEOS (Thailand Earth Observation Satellite), which currently has over 100,000 images stored in its database since the satellite was launched in June 2009, according to Surachai Ratanasermpong, Deputy Executive Director of the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA).

The agency previously had experience in satellite data acquisition, processing, dissemination and application development from various satellite sources such as LANDSAT.

The satellite, which provides resolution at two metres and has a map accuracy of 1:10000 scale, will benefit the country by generating income and providing data for economic and social purposes.

The data can be used for base maps and utilised for many other applications. It is already used for geoinformatics, showing rice, tapioca and maize crop areas that support the government's agricultural policy.

The information will help with field acreage verification and strengthen the cash crop price mechanism as well as assist with forecasting crop yields each year. The satellite data will complement survey field data to give a more accurate and updated picture for government agencies.

Disaster management is another area that will benefit from satellite imagery. "Before THEOS, we used Radarsat to update the flood situation in 38 provinces in the central region. At that time we created an eFlood Map to help the government verify the facts in order to reduce overclaiming in compensation cases," Surachai said.

THEOS also helps to monitor the progress of Royal Projects and other government projects.

In terms of national security and military issues, the agency also provides updated mapping of Preah Vihear for the prime minister to make decisions concerning the temple area which is causing tension between Cambodia and Thailand.

Recent discussions between the prime minister and the Thai Patriots network, which is led by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), have reached a common position on the disputed 4.6-square-kilometre area surrounding the Preah Vihear temple.

Surachai continued that the agency's services are also accessible for everyone to see satellite maps of Thailand on the web site (maps.gistda.or.th), which will be available by early 2011.

GISTDA uses the MapServer platform, an open source platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications on the web. The service will open in the form of Web Map Service Interface Standard (WMS) under the Open Geospatial Consortium standard. Using an open source platform helps the agency to save almost two million baht in software licensing.

"Using the Internet will enable citizens to access satellite data about Thailand more easily and facilitate the sharing of data between agencies and private organisations," Surachai said.

He pointed out that while THEOS maps are not as high resolution as maps generated by Google Earth, the data is more up to date because the agency will update the data at the two metre resolution and 15 metre resolution each year while Google Earth's data is mostly three to five years old.

Moreover, the data will cover every part of Thailand, especially upcountry areas. Google Earth mostly provides details of Thailand's major cities and urban areas rather than provincial areas.

Local administrations at the tambon and amphor level will benefit from using updated data in their areas to manage their property and natural resources while helping to reduce the budget costs for geoinformatics projects. Local administrations will pay small amounts for operation costs only.

Moreover, the agency will also develop visitor guide maps for each province in Thailand to support the travel industry.

The maps currently available in the market are sketch maps. Image maps taken by satellite contain more accurate positions and real distances from place to place including basic information and points of interest.

The agency is also collaborating with the government of Laos to survey the northern city of Luang Phrabang and plans to publish maps for the tourist industry Laos and Thailand, with the revenue to be shared by both countries.

Vietnam and Burma have also expressed interest in collaborating with Thailand to use THEOS to highlight disaster areas. The collaboration will bring experience and show the benefits of using THEOS satellites to neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia, which is one of the satellite agency's target markets.

"We plan to find distribution partners to sell THEOS services in the international market and distribution channels for image maps. We expect to regain at least 10 percent, or 600 million baht, of the overall cost of the satellite within the next few years," Surachai said.

He added that the THEOS project is not aiming to gain the highest profit margins but is focused on using satellite data in many applications which is expect to benefit at least 80 organisations in both the public and private spheres. The data service fee for government agencies is around 5,000 baht per scene compared to a fee of 40,000-100,000 charged by commercial enterprises. This price will encourage more organisations to use satellite data. To date, the agency is setting up science camps in collaboration with schools to create awareness of the use of satellite data, especially to solve community problem such as the misuse of natural resources.

"Organisations may use satellite data in monitoring application to update more frequently compared to the past when they may use it only a couple of times each year," Surachai said.