Space blog - Entries from December 2008

Space technologists support local charity

Tuesday, December 16. 2008

Anne Milton MP, Mohammad Zubair and Matt Perkins

In the first quarter of the New Year, a SSTL satellite will be launched. This time around it carries more than just a payload, it will contribute to charity.

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited showed that their satellite technology is not only beneficial for longer-term natural disaster monitoring; it also benefits the local community. When the new Surrey built UKDMC-2 satellite joins a group of six SSTL satellites in March in order to monitor and record natural disasters such as tsunamis, earth quakes, volcanic activity and flooding, it will also be carrying a message of benevolence.

Whilst building the spacecraft that is worth more than £5million, Dr Matt Perkins, Chief Executive of SSTL, came up with the idea of running a competition which would benefit a local charity. The winner of the competition would have the once in a lifetime opportunity to have their name or company logo printed alongside the satellite.

Galaxy Cars, a mini-cab company from Woking, won the competition by donating £8000 to Phyllis Tuckwell, a dedicated Hospice in Farnham that provides care to more than 100 people every day. Phyllis Tuckwell will also have their name printed on the space capsule.

Dr Perkins explained that he wanted to help the local community as SSTL’s work has a certain reach, which could be capitalised to promote charitable projects:

I was touched by what I heard about Phyllis Tuckwell and so we took the opportunity to raise funds for them and put their name into space

Sarah Brocklebank, Chief Executive of Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice, said:

I was delighted with the contribution and the opportunity of having the charity name floating in orbit.

Mohammad Zubair, owner of Galaxy Cars, stated:

We think this is a great opportunity to put something back into the community.

The new satellite is the latest edition to SSTL’s space portfolio and will join a team of six devices that are already in orbit, one of which has been going more than five years (Alsat-1).

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in Remote sensing at 13:15 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: aerospace

, earth observation

, environment

, space

Obama and the International Space Station (ISS)

Monday, December 15. 2008

In the spirit of Obama’s new reign, international partners will be enlisted to provide International Space Station (ISS) cargo re-supply, and eventually alternate means for sending crews to the ISS.

International Space Station

The International Space Station is also held up as an outstanding example of what can be accomplished through international cooperation. Though the US has spent billions of dollars to build the station, the microgravity research it was intended to facilitate has fallen victim to funding cuts. Barack Obama says he will ensure that NASA and other federal agencies fully utilize the ISS to conduct research that can help address global challenges such as public health and energy independence and can develop technologies that can provide economic benefits to Earth. Obama says he will also enable research on the ISS to support long-term human exploration and planetary research needs.

Partners and cooperation
Barack Obama will enlist other Federal agencies, industry and academia to develop innovative scientific and technological research projects on the ISS.

The ISS has been a model for international cooperation to achieve peaceful objectives in space, helping develop positive relations with Russia during the 1990s. America must take the next step and use the ISS as a strategic tool in diplomatic relations with non traditional partners.

Human exploration
Obama will use the ISS for fundamental biological and physical research to understand the effects of long-term space travel on human health and to test emerging technologies to enable such travel.

Retaining options for extended operations
Barack Obama will consider options to extend ISS operations beyond 2016. After investing so much in developing the ISS, it would be a shame not to utilize it to the fullest possible extent.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in Lunar exploration at 17:26 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: iss

, nasa

, space

, technology

Alsat-1 still going strong

Monday, December 15. 2008

Alsat-1, the first SSTL satellite of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and the catalyst of Algeria’s fledgling space programme, remains healthy and fully operational after its sixth year in orbit.

Alsat-1 image of Tunis

Now, having exceeded its original 5 year schedule, Alsat-1 is more than 12 months into extended mission. The satellite engineers say that this remarkable extension was mainly accomplished through careful battery management.

Alsat-1 was not only the first DMC satellite, but also the first spacecraft to carry a Line Scan Imager. As such, SSTL is particularly delighted about this recent achievement. Its tasks have included responding to forest fires in Algeria and contributing to worldwide disaster response under the International Charter: Space and Major Disasters.

The Earth-Observation (EO) satellite is still providing imagery to the Algerian CNTS team (Centre National des Techniques Spatiales of Algeria) on a regular basis, although at a reduced capacity in order to further extend the battery life.

Alsat-1 carries an optical imaging payload developed by SSTL to provide 32m ground resolution with an exceptionally wide swath width of over 640 km allowing it to image an unparalleled area in each pass. CNTS is distributing the data to other Algerian institutions, which are using it for pollution monitoring, cartography and petrology applications.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in Remote sensing at 16:30 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: algeria