Last December 15th, Space Day 2021 took place, a competition organized by the Copernicus Masters, Galileo Masters and AZO – Space for Growth network, which aims to highlight the most promising solutions in the space area. In all, 35 projects were awarded, the first place in Portugal Space – the Portugal Space Atlantic Challenge, went to the Habtrail Project.

The Habtrail Project, which is the responsibility of the Azorean company Grupo Eyecon, was chosen in the Copernicus Masters international competition, which promotes innovation in the use of data in the field of earth observation. According to Ricardo Conde, president of the Portuguese Space Agency, this participation had the participation of six different countries.

The proposal of this company from the Azores is to create a way to combat the proliferation of harmful algae, on a large scale, which affect Portuguese waters and all coastal areas in the world. For this, the company created a system that monitors the expansion of algae through pigments that analyze the quality of the water with images from the Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 satellites, as well as an application that can analyze which algae are harmful.

The Orbiter application won the 2021 edition of the ESA Challenge. This application disseminates images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel 2, 3 and 5p satellites, with all interested parties, providing real-time information about the planet Earth.

There was still time for more permeation during this event. In the “Agriculture and Forestry” category, the Galileo Portugal Award given to Enartin’s Agroture project, whose mission is to increase productivity in the agricultural sector through data from the Galileo satellite navigation system, and Copernicus, which uses Intelligence Artificial. With this data, it will be easier for farmers to make the most informed decisions, as they will have access to information as well as the presentation of the time.

Regarding the Copernicus Azores Prize, it was won by Engenharia LS, a company that uses data from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 to ensure better management and coastal support.

All these awards were the responsibility of the Portuguese Space Agency, in partnership with the AIR Center, Instituto Pedro Nunes, VCW Lab and NOVA SBE.