Structure

Schematic
Members
Associates
Secretariat
Subsidiary Groups

SCHEMATIC

Click here to see a diagram of how CEOS is organized.

MEMBERS

CEOS Members are governmental organizations that are international or national in nature and are responsible for a civil spaceborne Earth observation program currently operating, or at least in Phase B or equivalent of system development. Members must have a continuing activity in spaceborne Earth observations, intended to operate and provide nondiscriminatory and full access to data that will be made available to the international community.

Click here for a list of current CEOS Members.

ASSOCIATES

CEOS Associates are defined as either one of the following:

• Governmental organizations that are international or national in nature and currently have a civil space-segment activity in Phase A/pre-Phase A or equivalent of system development, or a significant ground-segment activity that supports CEOS objectives; or

• other existing satellite coordination groups and scientific or governmental bodies that are international in nature and currently have a significant programmatic activity that supports CEOS objectives.

Associates may participate in all CEOS activities, however their vote is not required to reach consensus at Plenary.

Click here for a list of current CEOS Associates.

SECRETARIAT

The CEOS Chair and the Plenary are supported by the CEOS Secretariat. The CEOS Secretariat supports the general administrative requirements of CEOS and provides consistency and continuity in CEOS activities. The Secretariat is a permanent tripartite body maintained by ESA, EUMETSAT, NASA, NOAA, MEXT/JAXA and Chairs of each working group. ESA and EUMETSAT are responsible for liaison with CEOS members and candidate members in Europe and Africa; NASA and NOAA in the Americas, and MEXT/JAXA in the Asia Pacific region. Each year's incoming Plenary host agency leads the activities of the Secretariat for that year. In addition, to ensure the expeditious conduct of business, the past and the forthcoming CEOS Chairs are included in the Secretariat. The Chair of the CEOS working groups are invited to all meetings of the Secretariat.

In general, the Secretariat prepares and distributes the minutes for the Plenary meetings, serves as a point of contact for external organizations interacting with CEOS, maintains and updates the CEOS Dossier on space and ground segment activities, produces other periodic publications, ensures communication among Members and Associates between meetings, reports at each Plenary session on its activities and the status of action items from previous Plenary meetings and performs other tasks as assigned by the CEOS Plenary. The Plenary guides the work of the Secretariat.

To contact the CEOS Secretariat, click here.

Subsidiary Groups

For information on the CEOS subsidiary groups, please click here.

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Curator: CEOS Secretariat

(Last update: March 23, 2007)