European Space Agency Permanent Facility for Altimeter Calibration (PFAC)
The development of the Permanent Facility for Altimeter Calibration (PFAC) of the European Space Agency started in late 2001 with the establishment of an absolute sea-level monitoring and altimeter calibration facility on the island of Gavdos south of Crete, Greece. Since then, the Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, Technical University of Crete (GeoMatLab/TUC) and Space Geomatica, a private company located in Chania, Crete, Greece, have joined forces for the maintenance, upgrade and continuous evolution of the PFAC.
Meet Our Team
Prof. Stelios P. Mertikas
Director
Prof. Stelios Mertikas, has been working on satellite altimetry calibration for more than 35 years. He has been responsible for the establishment and continuous operation of the Gavdos Cal/Val permanent facility for more 2.5 decades. He has received a Dipl. Ing (1979) from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, an M.Sc.E. (1983) and a Ph.D. (1987), from the Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Canada. He has 40-year of experience on satellite precise positioning, navigation, altimetry calibration, statistical quality control and remote sensing. He has worked as a Lecturer and Professor at the University of New Brunswick and the University of Toronto, Canada, respectively. He was post-doctoral fellow at the University of Calgary, Canada in 1991, and also an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the School of Geomatic Engineering of the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 1996. In 2000, he was a Science and Technology fellow at the National Research Institute of Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Tsukuba, Japan. In 2014, Prof. Mertikas was Visiting Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, Hong Kong, and Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Kyoto, Japan where he worked at the University of Kyoto, Graduate School of Sciences. In 2019, Professor Mertikas was granted the Excellence Award for Research by the Technical University of Crete as assessed and recommended to the University Rectorship by an external evaluation committee. He has been a member of the Mission Advisory Group in the European Space Agency and a principal investigator on several research projects with funding from the European Union, European Space Agency, NASA, and CNES.
Dr. Dimitrios Piretzidis
Title
Dr. Dimitrios Piretzidis (Space Geomatica) holds a Diploma in Rural and Surveying Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and a Masters of Engineering in Geo-informatics from the same University. He also holds a PhD (2020) in Earth Observation from the Geomatics Department, University of Calgary, Canada. His research interests cover a wide field of geosciences such as geodynamics, physical and satellite geodesy, hydrology, geostatistics. He authored more than 10 research papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and more than 30 presentations in international workshops/conferences. Since June 2020, Dr. Piretzidis works with Space Geomatica in satellite altimetry calibration and validation using transponder and sea-surface calibrations, quality control of measurements obtained by a plethora of scientific instruments such as GNSS, transponder, gravimeters, etc
Dr. Costas Kokolakis
Title
Dr. Costas Kokolakis (Space Geomatica) holds a Bachelor with honors in Physics from the University of Crete, Physics Department, in 2016 and a Master in Astrophysics and Space Physics from the same institute in 2017 (first of his class). He received his PhD in satellite altimetry at the Technical University of Crete under the supervision of prof. Stelios P. Mertikas. In March of 2020 he has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to visit the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, to develop for the calibration of the upcoming SWOT (USA/France) altimeter mission from the calibration sites in Crete and Gavdos.
Dr. Kokolakis works in calibration processing of altimetry satellites, with the unique range microwave transponder located in the CDN1 transponder Cal/Val site. He is experienced in correcting neutral atmosphere delays on satellite altimetry signals using Global Navigation Satellite Systems measurements and the Gipsy-X software. Also, he installed, calibrated and operated the European Microwave radiometer for measuring the emission of wet troposphere in the microwave spectrum. Like so he estimated the previously mentioned delays using a diverse technique, following the Fiducial Reference Measurements strategy. He has programming experience in Python, Deep Learning and Bayesian Statistics analysis.
Mr. Xenophon Frantzis
Title
Mr. Xenofon Frantzis (Technical University of Crete) is a Mineral Resources Engineer and holds an M.Sc. degree from the Technical University of Crete. He has been working on GNSS geodetic data processing for more than 15 years. He will be responsible for determining the precise geodetic coordinates
Mr. Sotirios Bouros
Title
Mr. Sotiris Bouros is an Electronics Engineer, specialist in computer Networks Design, Development and Implementation, Database Applications, Internet-based Information Systems. He holds a Dipl. Eng. from the Informatics and Computer Engineering Department, University of Patras, Greece
Mr. Achilles Tripolitsiotis
Title
Mr. Achilles Tripolitsiotis, is co-founder of Space Geomatica PC. He is a Mineral Resources Engineer and holds an MSc degree from the Technical University of Crete. He has extensive experience as senior engineer in multi-disciplinary (Engineering constructions, road designs, etc.) public works in the engineering construction industry. Mr. Tripolitsiotis is the head of the company’s RTD Department and he represented the company in the team participated (and finally awarded) in the 2015 Copernicus Visualization Challenge and the JRC MyGEOSS challenge. The same stands for the Drones2GNSS project that won the European GNSS Service prize on “The most innovative application idea for Galileo Initial Services”. This project has been funded by Structural Funds and Mr. Tripolitsiotis coordinates the respective project. He is the company’s principal investigator at the ERANETMED project titled DES2iRES. He has more than 45 publications and presentations in scientific peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings. Mr. Tripolitsiotis has been working in the Gavdos Cal/Val facility as responsible for instrument installations, operations, maintenance, and execution of field surveys for two decades. Mr. Tripolitsiotis, has been involved in the administrative and financial management of EC funded projects for more than 15 years.