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.

The time has come around again for The British Science Festival, an event which is organised by the British Science Association, and takes place every September. The University of Surrey, Guildford, will host of the festival this year with further events scheduled throughout the rest of the county. The festivities begin tomorrow, on Saturday 5th September and draw to a close on the 10th.

There are lots of activities to get involved in during the 6 day event, including discussions, plays and talks. SSTL's Sir Martin Sweeting, Andy Bradford, and Dave Hodgson are amongst the speakers at the Festival. Both Bradford and Sweeting hail from local Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), with Hodgson making an appearance from DMC International Imaging Ltd.

Continue reading "British Science Festival kicks off tomorrow"

Nigeria’s space programme has made further progress this month, as the NigeriaSat-2 and NX Earth observation satellites passed environmental tests.

Environmental tests comprise a series of rigorous checks that are conducted to simulate the environment in which the spacecraft will operate in space. All spacecraft undergo these tests to validate the designs and to ensure quality control. It is a formal review milestone and a point at which SSTL engineers can identify potential issues for correction.

The NX satellite has been integrated and tested by Nigerian engineers working at SSTL during the past 2 years as part of their training and development programme.

This is the second such programme that SSTL has supplied to NASRDA. In 2003, NigeriaSat-1 was launched into the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and remains operational. The launch of two further Nigerian satellites into the DMC will ensure continuity of the nation’s space assets as well as a significant advancement in capability through NigeriaSat-2’s high-resolution capability.

Under the current contract with the National Space Research & Development Agency (NASRDA), SSTL is providing a high-resolution Earth observation satellite, NigeriaSat-2, based on the SSTL-300 platform – the first to be built by SSTL. NX is based on the SSTL-100 platform, which has gained flight heritage through existing satellites in the DMC. Under the supervision of SSTL engineers, NX was built by the Nigerian training engineers, who also took the satellite through its test programme. A Nigerian operations team will also be on hand throughout the launch and commissioning phase, learning the necessary skills to operate the new spacecraft..

The tests include thermal simulation, taking the spacecraft through the extreme ranges of temperature that they will experience in low earth orbit. These tests were conducted in the large space test chamber at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. Each spacecraft was subjected to hot and cold cycles within a temperature range of +60dC to -20dC. Vacuum tests replicated the non-atmospheric environment in which the satellites will operate some 686km above the Earth. Thermal vacuum tests ran over a 5-day, 24-hour period with each subsystem tested individually within the extremes of environment.

The two satellites were then taken to EADS Astrium’s Portsmouth facility for vibration tests that simulate the challenging conditions of launch.

NigeriaSat-2 was then moved to the QinetiQ facilities in Chertsey where electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests were carried out to simulate interference and radiation effects that the satellite and subsystem electronics will face in orbit.

This is an exciting time for the 25 Nigerian engineers who have spent varying periods of time at SSTL and the University of Surrey over the past 2 years, working and studying to achieve the skills that will underpin Nigeria’s ongoing space programme. Both NigeriaSat-2 and NX are now nearing completion with the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) this month.

On September 22nd the training and development programme will reach completion and a new generation of highly skilled engineers will return to Nigeria to resume their work at the National Space Research & Development Agency (NASRDA) whilst they wait with anticipation for the launch of the two new satellites.

Just over a month ago, on July 30, 2009 Visit NASRDA website marked its 10 years of existence as a National Space Research & Development Agency, with mandate for the implementation of the Nigeria National Space Policies and Programmes

It's a busy time for both SSTL and DMCii as the new DMC satellites UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1, which were launched on the 29th July are commisioned and their imaging systems thoroughly tested and calibrated.

Just a week after launch, DMCii had already begun acquiring stunning satellite imagery from both satellites using the new 22m multi-spectral imaging payloads that they carry onboard. This would not have been possible without the new 22m multi-spectral imager that was developed by SSTL's Optical Payloads Group (OPG) in Sevenoaks, Kent. In a addition to the more obvious resolution increase it has over the previous 32m DMC imager, it includes a number of technological advances that improve the quality and calibration of the images DMCii receives.

This first image shows the states of Texas and Oklahoma, USA. The DMC satellites are specifically designed to image very large areas with rapid response and at regular intervals, as shown in this first multi-state image. The new satellites can image much larger areas in a single pass than the previous DMC satellites due to advances in onboard storage and high speed satellite downlinks to the Earth.



This is one of the first 11 images taken by Deimos-1, see the Deimos-1 gallery provided by the satellite owner Deimos Space for more.

Continue reading "New DMC satellites deliver stunning images"