Yesterday, the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) was launched at the Royal Institution in London. The new center, with a budget of £33 million ($47 million) will involve more than 100 investigators from 26 universities and research centers within the United Kingdom. NCEO is being set up on the eve of several European Space Agency satellite launches, with three scheduled for orbit in 2009.

The Gravity and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite is designed to skip over the top of the atmosphere taking measurements, and is scheduled for launch on March 16. The Soil Moisture and Ocean salinity mission (SMOS,) and CryoSat-2 , which will monitor variations in the thickness of the continental ice-sheets and marine ice cover, and they’re scheduled for launch later in the year.

NCEO will become an important resource for the European Space Agency’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security program. The three satellites are focused on environmental monitoring, and the center similarly will focus on environmental research with seven main themes: climate, the carbon cycle, hazardous weather, the atmosphere, the poles, data assimilation, and earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Read more related Spatial Sustain posts:

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• Climate Monitoring Becomes a Key U.S. Government Priority
• The Land Change Modeler from Clark Labs Gets Support from Google.org
• Obama Refocuses NASA on Earth Observation