At the Farnborough International Airshow last week, the UK signed a historic agreement with Russia leading the way to greater collaboration in space between the two nations. SSTL welcomes this great news, which promises to make it easier for the two nations to benefit from their respective strengths.

SSTL has had a long and successful collaboration with a variety of Russian organisations spanning 20 years, working with the UK and Moscow offices of Commercial Space Technologies (CST Ltd.) as representative and local partner. SSTL and CST have together been one of the major customers for Russian launch services. However, don't think it's a one way street - SSTL is also playing an integral role in the high resolution Kanopus Earth Observation constellation with its partner FSUE NPP VNIIEM.

Professor Sir Martin Sweeting OBE, Executive Chairman of SSTL, commented

We have built up a close relationship with our colleagues at CST and the Russian Space Agency over the last 20 years, successfully launching 21 satellites on-board Russian rockets over 11 launch campaigns. SSTL was the first customer and partner for the DNEPR launch vehicle, allowing Kosmotras to compete in the international market for launch services using this launcher and also the first customer for SSO services from Plesetsk on Cosmos LV. SSTL is extending this relationship into the future through significant participation in the Kanopus high resolution Earth Observation constellation with our partner FSUE NPP VNIIEM and the launch of three further satellites from Russia later this year. I hope that the signing of this MOU between UK Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency will bring further commercial benefits to the space activities and space industries of both countries.

In October, SSTL will launch the NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X satellites on behalf of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) by a Dnepr launch vehicle from Yasny, Russia on 29th October 2010.

Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital) has ordered nine GPS patch antennas from SSTL for the Cygnus™ advanced manoeuvring spacecraft – for those who don’t recognise the name, this is one of the forthcoming unmanned resupply spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS)!

Orbital is the prime contractor for this spacecraft – which is one of the first truly commercial missions to be conducted for NASA.

The Cygnus spacecraft is being developed by Orbital to demonstrate cargo delivery services under a NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) agreement. In addition to the COTS development and demonstration program, Orbital will utilise the Cygnus to perform ISS resupply flights under the Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) contract. This NASA contract authorises eight missions between 2011 and 2015 carrying approximately 20,000 kg of cargo to the ISS, as well as disposal of ISS waste.

The coming together of the commercial space entrepreneurs and the world’s most established space agency is not the only story here. As you’d expect, flying cargo to the ISS has its challenges, not least of which is manoeuvring and docking with the space station and Cygnus in fact comprises a common service module and a pressurised cargo module.




For more information, visit the Cygnus Factsheet

SSTL manufactures the majority of its sub-systems used in its own and third party missions, they are available to order and have been used extensively on a range of small and larger third party missions. For more details, visit www.sstl.co.uk/divisions/systems-and-services/subsystems

SSTL has delivered eight S-Band patch antennas to COM DEV this month that will play a small part in the Canadian space company’s exciting M3MSat (Maritime Monitoring and Messaging Micro-satellite) mission.

The M3MSat (Maritime Monitoring and Messaging Micro-satellite) is a technology demonstration mission jointly funded and managed by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The microsatellite is being designed, built and launched by COMDEV for the Government of Canada to support Canadian sovereignty, security, safety and communications needs within the territorial and maritime regions of Canada and beyond.

M3MSat is designed to demonstrate the full capability of advanced space-based AIS (Automatic Identification System) technology developed by COM DEV. AIS signals are broadcast from the world’s major marine vessels for navigation and identification purposes, but they are currently only collected by other ships and land-based receivers within a severely limited 50 nautical mile range. COMDEV's unique AIS technology exceeds the performance of any other known system and the collection of these signals from space would enable an unprecedented global view of the world's shipping traffic – rather like air traffic control but for ships.

The new S-band antennas will allow M3MSat to communicate with groundstations, and the four GPS patch antennas will allow the satellite to receive GPS signals to determine their position in space. This latest delivery supplements two GPS patch antennas that SSTL shipped to COMDEV last year.

SSTL’s patch antennas are particularly cost effective, an attribute further strengthened by their low mass design. The patch antennas belong to a complete S-band communications suite for telecommand, telemetry, and payload downlink that also includes Isoflux quadrifilar helix antennas for different coverage requirements.


A secondary communications payload will be operated on M3MSat to demonstrate a range of low data rate applications that can support Canadian civil needs as well as commercial requirements. The micro-satellite is expected to be launched in 2010.

SSTL’s satellite imaging subsidiary DMCii has used its UK-DMC2 satellite to monitor the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.

Satellite imagery is being supplied to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), and the US Geological Survey (USGS) following an activation of the International Charter : Space and Major Disasters.

UK-DMC2 and its five siblings in the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) of satellites are able to provide daily imaging of the oil slick if required, detecting changes in the spill and tracking changes in direction. Current reports indicate that the oil click is moving towards the Florida coastline, having already reached land and affected Louisiana fisheries.

The DMC satellites use specially designed SSTL imaging payloads to image the Earth at resolutions between 4m and 32m across an ultra-wide 600km-plus swath (width).

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