SpaceAppsRome 2016 won by the Ice CREAM Team of our student Fabiana Milza (Master in Astronautical Engineering)

The L.I.V.E. glacier project (Ice Cream Team) with our student Fabiana Milza selected from NASA Space App in the Gaòlactic Impact  category.

The SpaceAppsRome 2016, the hackaton of the NASA held simultaneously in more than 170 cities around the world , held in Rome in the Engineering faculty of Sapienza-University of Rome, had been won by the Ice CREAM Team: Martina Di Rita, Roberta Ravanelli e Andrea Nascetti, PhD students and Post-Doc researcher of the area of Geomatics and Geodesy of the DICEA (Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering of Sapienza); Marco Di Tullio, master student of  Environmental Engineering; Fabiana Milza, master student of Astronautical Engineering of the DIAEE (Department of Astronautical, Electrics and Energetics Engineering); Paola Belingheri, Management engineer and PhD student of Management at LUISS and Gabriele Mamoli, professional designer and founder of the start up Be My Guru.

During a demanding week end of intense work, the team developed a web tool LIVE (Live Ice Velocity Estimation) Glaciers that provides near real-time visualization of glacier surface velocity fields, obtained by processing a stack of free SENTINEL-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar images through our own software, with the addition of environmental variables from NASA GIBS. The additional selling point is a functioning web map service for download and visualisation of all results, that enables scientists to freely employ the data, for example calculating displacement, mass gained or lost by the glaciers, their stability, and their erosion factors, thereby evaluating the impact of climate change without visiting them in person.

Starting from this web tool the team provided also GLANCY, an app for sustainable tourism on or around glaciers, with pointers on how to plan your trip, the facilities, the resources and a rich portfolio of photos that witness the changing glaciers landscape. In exchange the community of app users is asked to upload their own pictures of the glacier when they visit, in order to add in-situ data that will further support scientific analysis, as well as supporting Space Agencies in verifying the accuracy of the satellite data processing.

The aim of the project is to raise awareness of climate change impacts, through a solution that is useful for scientists and attractive for a wider community of individuals who can consciously contribute to science while enjoying an amazing trip.

Having won the SpaceAppsRome, the Ice CREAM Team in now competing for the global challenge, hoping to go to Houston to show their project in person to the NASA scientists!