We hope you enjoyed our space blog “Is Pluto really a planet?” Who knows what surprises the Pluto area may contain, Stuart Eves is certainly keen to find out.

It is easy to dismiss remote planets, but he believes there may be some new discoveries in store. Either way, NASA’s New Horizons mission, launched in January this year promises a closer look on the 14th July 2005 when it is expected to encounter Pluto and Charon, and Pluto’s recently discovered tiny moons Hydra and Nix.

Notably, New Horizons is a small satellite mission weighing in at 470 kg (pictured below). It could be said that there is a dual meaning in the name of the mission, New Horizons is not only exploring space but also new technologies that make space more affordable.

Recent news from the Government has provided a welcome boost for UK Space. The Government will subscribe a further E31 million to the European Space Agency's development of the Galileo programme, Europe's future civil satellite navigation system, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alistair Darling confirmed today.

Mr Darling said that the investment is good news for British jobs, British technology and science.

"Already many British companies are leading its development. We want our businesses to continue to lead when it is up and running - with new opportunities opening for our transport and communications industries."

SSTL launched the first satellite of the Galileo project, GIOVE-A on the 28th December 2005. The validation elecment secured frequencies with the ITU essential for the Galileo satellite navigation system to proceed.

Mr Darling continued,

"British expertise is helping to build it, we want British companies and jobs to benefit from it. That is why we are backing it."

A Public Private Partnership (PPP), currently under negotiation, will take over responsibility for building and operating the Galileo system.

UK industry has already secured key roles in Galileo: Astrium UK and LogicaCMG are major partners in Galileo Industries, the consortium of European companies that will build the first four test satellites. In addition, Inmarsat, a member of the merged Consortium that is bidding to run the Galileo PPP will manage the Galileo Operations Company (OpCo) for the Consortium in London.

A Government press release acknowledged the work of SSTL and other key participants in UK Space:

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd* has already led a consortium that built and launched GIOVE-A, a demonstrator satellite to test the robustness of the technology being used under this programme. Other companies who will benefit from the development of Galileo include BT, Thales ATM, COMDEV UK and the Vega Group.

The Government is supporting a bid backed by the Welsh Assembly Government for Cardiff to host the Galileo Supervisory Authority, which will own and regulate the PPP for the European Community.

The development phase of Galileo is a joint European Union (EU) and European Space Agency (ESA) programme, the costs of which are shared equally between the organisations. The EU share comes from its Transport Trans European Networks budget while ESA obtains its funds from contributions from its Member States. Current costs of the development programme are estimated by the EU and ESA to be E1.5 billion.

The EU will provide E200 million while ESA has asked individual Member States to provide the other E200 million. The UK's contribution of ESA's share is E31 million, equivalent to the additional contribution from France, Italy and Germany, the other major contributors.

* Space blog has removed the "s" from "Satellites" in company name.

DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) was on duty last week as the Emergency On-Call Officer (ECO) for the International Charter; Space & Major Disasters.

DMCii Operations Manager, Gary Crowley was alerted late last night by an official activation of the Charter (Call no. 129) in response to serious oil leakage from a tanker that has sunk in the Panay Gulf, Philippines. He tasked Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors on two satellites, ENVISAT (European Space Agency) and Radarsat (Canadian Space Agency) to acquire images of the area.

Map showing the location of the sunken ship

SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) is particularly useful for imaging at night or through cloud, and can detect changes in the surface roughness of the ocean, which can help to identify areas of oil slick. Analysis of SAR images is complex, because wind shadows also create smooth areas, which can be mistaken for oil.
The SAR images will be delivered to a designated Project Manager who will analyse the data, and prepare maps of the affected zone to give to disaster response teams on site.

The Guardian reported ?The oil tanker sank last Friday, with some 2m litres of thick bunker fuel on board. Two of the 20 crew are still missing. Only one of the 10 fuel containers is thought to have ruptured but officials fear the stresses of lying on the seabed 900m (3,000ft) below the surface could causes the other containers to leak.?

A beach on Guimaras island in the Philippines is covered with bunker oil from the Sunrise 1 oil tanker spill.
Photograph: Ariel Catubig/AP

The SAR image acquired by the European Space Agency with ENVISAT clearly shows the black areas of smooth water surface created by the oil spill.

The SAR image to the left was delivered to the Project Manager, UNOSAT, which then created a map of the area. More information is available on the Charter Website for Call 129.

Photos of the Philippines clean up can be found at the BBC and the breaking news from Reuters. Some intereresting blogs are found at Greenpeace

Find out more about DMC activities at www.dmcii.com

Following our blog yesterday about the uncertain future of Pluto, 424 astronomers at the IAU General Assembly in Prague came to a decision based upon a series of resolutions. The small Kuiper Belt body has lost its planet status and has been demoted to “Dwarf planet” on the basis that Pluto has a highly elliptical orbit overlapping with that of Neptune.


The backlash has already begun against the argument that Pluto “failed to dominate its orbit around the Sun” (source:BBC) compared to other larger bodies in the solar system.

Pluto’s demotion is becoming a hot topic in the “Blogosphere” too, with a whiff of conspiracy and astronomers simply fed up with the Pluto talk when more pressing academic discussions were at hand in Prague.

Most people have taken the changes in their stride. The demotion of Pluto is, of course, a sore blow if you have a site named Nine Planets, you are an astrologer or a confused child at school.

Now that it's all over and the dust is settling in Prague, Space Blog is looking forward to some more detailed information about Pluto from NASA's New Frontiers mission.