International charter 'space and major disasters' status report

The International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' celebrates in October 2005 its 5 anniversary of operations. The Charter has been activated for seventy-two times to respond to mostly natural but also technological disasters that struck communities all over the world. The Charter membership has grown from an initial three at the time of the start of its operations as of November 1, 2000, to the current seven space agencies. Both archive as well as newly acquired optical and radar data have been delivered with constantly improving turnaround to suit the user requirements and the disaster type. After thorough rehearsals and training, each qualified member agency has provided in turn a centralized satellite tasking service that has aided the individual mission planning staff of these agencies to rapidly procure data from multiple satellites, including SPOT, RADARSAT, ERS, ENVISAT, IRS, NOAA satellites, and SAC-C. An Executive Secretariat reporting to a Board has ensured the overall Charter implementation. The Charter operations are conducted according to the preestablished plans and procedures that are upgraded as the experience grows and the user feedback is received. The day-today Charter administration has been facilitated by means of a highly structured ftp site. Every Charter activation is documented with Project Managers' reports and on-call planners' records. The Co-operation of the Charter Authorized Users and the Project Managers from member agencies and other organizations, such as the United Nations, has been most helpful in the success of the Charter operations. An aggressive communications strategy and a well-maintained Charter website are used for promoting the Charter. This report describes the evolution of the Charter implementation and performance in support of the international disaster relief response.