Introduction

Abstract

Disasters occur every day on our planet, affecting millions of people each year and inflicting terrible suffering and economic loss. Space systems and our access to space technologies provide disaster managers with powerful capabilities that help to plan for, respond to, and minimize the impacts of disasters every day. Space systems have become a vital aspect of our global infrastructure, providing telecommunications, data, imagery, positioning and timing services effortlessly around the globe, but these are actually very complex systems to manage and use, and they are often the only such capabilities available immediately after a disaster has occurred, because they do not rely on ground services or infrastructure.