This evening SSTL will celebrate the first anniversary of the Earth observation satellites Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2 that were launched in July last year onboard a Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The two satellites were quickly commissioned and joined the Disaster Monitoring Constellation to deliver their first images in August just a week after launch.

Deimos-1 was the first Earth Observation satellite built by SSTL for Spanish company Deimos Imaging, who have been capturing fantastic imagery of the world during the year. The following image and many more can be viewed in their online gallery.

It has also been an eventful year for the SSTL's own UK-DMC2 satellite, which captured images of the Forest Fires in California and more recently the spread of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Slick last month.

Continue reading "A year in orbit for Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2"

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.

Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has completed its August 2008-July 2009 detailed survey of deforestation by shallow cut throughout the Amazon region (INPE announcement). Its PRODES (Monitoring of the Brazilian Forest by Satellite) programme analyzed 400 images from Landsat, CBERS and the DMC Satellite Constellation to confirm that deforestation during the period was 7464 square kilometers, a reduction of 42% in comparison to 2007-2008. This is the lowest annual deforestation rate since INPE started systematic monitoring of the Amazon forest by satellite in 1988.

DMCii has worked with INPE to provide annual imaging of the whole Amazon Basin since 2005 to support this activity. By using multiple satellites, each capable of imaging a 650km wide swath of the forest canopy, DMCii is able to provide multi-spectral images of the entire area in 4-6 weeks. This provided INPE with valuable and timely information to help identify the extent of deforestation.

A significant decline in deforestation in the Amazon Basin has been observed since 2004. This is due in part to INPE’s new earth DETER system that detects deforestation in real time by fortnightly satellite imaging. This allows the supervisory board to take effective and prompt actions to combat illegal logging as it happens, rather than having to wait until after the damage is done.

Satellite capabilities play a crucial role in providing impartial information about deforestation in these large, inaccessible areas. The development of satellite constellations, pioneered by the DMC satellite constellation, has led to improved temporal and spatial resolution, enabling operational monitoring to support active and timely response to deforestation.

INPE announcement: www.inpe.br/ingles/news/news_dest117.php

SSTL is celebrating the 8th year in orbit of the high resolution CHRIS Imager, which was launched on-board the European Space Agency’s PROBA-1 mission, in October 2001.

The Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) is a highly versatile hyperspectral system that was developed by SSTL’s Optical Payload Group. CHRIS was one of many instruments on-board the mission, with the others including a Space Radiation Environment Monitor (SREM) and a Payload Autonomous Star Sensor (PASS).

CHRIS offers the highest spatial resolution of any hyperspectral system currently in orbit and can provide simultaneous images of the Earth in 19 wavebands. This allows for many features of the images it produces to be identified and analysed.

This high resolution imager enables ESA’s Proba-1 mission to acquire detailed images of the Earth. The result – stunning images of natural and urban phenomena.



Many more images can be seen on ESA’s website including that of the Mauna Kea Volcano, Hawaii and Tokyo.

CHRIS can be used for many applications, including precision farming, disaster monitoring, air quality assessment and seabed classification, and has proved so successful that it has paved the way for advanced sibling CHRIS-2, which allows for other valuable applications to be addressed, including mineralogy and pollution monitoring.

The CHRIS Imager is not the only family to have grown, as the ESA’s Proba-1 mission has now been joined in orbit by Proba-2, which was successfully launched yesterday.

In addition to SSTL's CHRIS hyperspectral imager, ESA's 8-year old PROBA-1 mission has been continuing to depend on a number of sub-systems provided by SSTL (incorporating contributions from Space Innovations Limited). These include the power system, communications system, AOCS sensors, the Data Handling System computer and the SGR-20 Space GPS receiver. All systems remain fully operational in the primary chain of the satellite and have served to enable the extended life imagery capture from the CHRIS and HRC payloads.