Mission
DRAGONESS is a specific support action project funded for 3 years by the European Commission under the FP6-Aerospace Contract No. SST5-CT-2006-030902. The DRAGONESS project will assess and establish an inventory of European and Chinese capacities in marine monitoring for environment and security. It capitalizes on achievement from recently completed and ongoing projects undertaken in Europe and in Peoples Republic of China. Notably this include the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)/National Remote Sensing Center of China (NRSCC) Dragon program, the outcome of the European Union (EU) Framework Program (FP5) Marine Environment and Security for the European Area (MERSEA) Strand-1 project, the ongoing EU FP6 MERSEA IP project, and the ESA Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) Service Element project MarCoast. DRAGONESS will in particular take stock of the definitions and implementation of the joint European Union (EU) and European Space Agency (ESA) GMES Marine Core Services and Downstream Services. Likewise, it will take into account the inter- connection between GMES and the 2007 to 2009 work plan provided by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO).