NOA

Founded in 1842, the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) is the oldest research foundation in Greece and has been nominated by the Greek government as the sole institution in charge of natural disasters monitoring. At global level, NOA hosts the UNESCO Chair for Natural Disasters, the Secretariat of the South Eastern European Disasters Risk Assessment and Mitigation Network, and the Focal Point on the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). NOA’s Institute for Astronomy Astrophysics Space Applications & Remote Sensing (IAASARS) has achieved excellence in the area of EO-based environmental and natural disaster monitoring and management, through its systematic participation to EC, ESA and Copernicus projects. Over the years, NOA has consolidated state-of-the-art scientific equipment including a satellite ground station for missions Meteosat, NOAA AVHRR, MODIS, NPP, FYI, MetOP and future NPOESS. It also hosts the first Collaborative Ground Segment for the management and dissemination of data flows from the Sentinel family of satellites.