In 2011 Europe has launched its first satellites into its future GNSS constellation, America has found Earth-like planet Kepler-22b while China has dominated space news, and Russia’s stricken Phobos-Grunt has brought the year to a close.

Following the formation of the UK Space Agency in 2010, the UK has also had a busy year – especially here at SSTL. We have seen important projects reach major milestones, celebrated anniversaries, and unveiled some very exciting new space technologies to the world.

In February, the Disaster Monitoring Constellation celebrated its 10th birthday. This unique international collaboration was set up to gather and distribute images of disaster zones anywhere in the world, and assisted disaster relief during Hurricane Katrina, the Asian Tsunami and many other disasters. SSTL’s remote sensing subsidiary, DMCii, also led the International Charter of Space and Major Disasters for 6 months from May to November, taking the reins as the world reeled from the devastation caused by the earthquake in Japan. Servicing its members’ national programmes, disaster relief and commercial imaging campaigns, the constellation has continued to grow this year with the launch of two Nigerian satellites.



NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X were launched from Yasny, Russia on the 17th August. They are the tangible outcome of a comprehensive programme that included the training of some 26 Nigerian engineers – in fact, NigeriaSat-X was the first satellite to be built by Nigerians for Nigeria. NigeriaSat-2 was the first satellite using the new SSTL-300 platform to be launched, further pushing the price/performance boundaries for small observation satellites with its unrivalled agility. Apart from super-clear high resolution imaging NigeriaSat-2 can uses its off-pointing to acquire stereoscopic images and build a 3D picture to map terrain. Nigeria has big plans for its new satellite, from monthly crop monitoring for increased food security, and keeping tabs on the country’s rapid urban growth.

In June, DMCii signed an impressive £110 million deal with Beijing-based company 21AT during the Chinese premier’s visit to the UK to lease the imaging capacity of three high-resolution satellites for applications such as disaster response and urban planning. The SSTL-built satellites, which are based upon the SSTL-300 platform but carry a higher resolution 1m imaging payload, will form a constellation named DMC3. The deal addresses growing demand for images from the small imaging satellite Beijing-1 which was built by SSTL and launched for 21AT in 2005.

2011 also marked the opening of SSTL’s new £10 million world-class technical facility, The Kepler Building, providing assembly, testing and integration of satellite platforms and payloads. Co-located with SSTL’s headquarters, this secure building, with its state-of-the-art cleanrooms, laboratories and testing facilities, provides enhanced abilities to design, build, and test spacecraft for customers around the world in one place – and looks good in the process!



TechDemoSat-1 is one of the projects underway in Kepler. A pioneering small satellite showcasing some of UK industry’s most promising space technologies, it will give participating academia and companies early flight heritage – the lack of which has previously been a barrier to market acceptance. We’re expecting some TechDemoSat-1 updates very soon so watch this space!

It’s been such a busy year for SSTL, you’ll have to tune in tomorrow for the second half of SSTL’s Year in Review. In the meanwhile, why not treat yourself this Christmas and subscribe to Space Blog by opening your present above and make sure you don’t miss it (or any other blog) again!

Broadcast journalist Evan Davis is a busy man of many hats. When he’s not on Radio 4’s Today Programme he can be spotted presenting Dragon’s Den or Made In Britain – both of which share his passion for British entrepreneurism and innovation. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Open University has appointed Evan Visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Business, where he recently delivered his first public lecture, Reflections on the British Economy.



Made in Britain viewers’ eyes were opened to a hidden world of British high-tech manufacturing and engineering that Britain is actually very good at – banishing the view that nothing is made in Britain anymore. It was a refreshing look at the positives amidst the UK PLC’s current economic woes. Evan’s lecture on 1st November follows same theme high-tech British manufacturing in the international arena, focusing specifically on three key areas:

• the continuing contribution of manufacturing.


• the UK’s comparative advantage in intellectual property


• the threats from emerging economies as they develop tradable services.

SSTL’s Stephen Gibson enjoyed his lecture, but little did he know that when he posed a question that Evan Davis would share a “soft spot” for SSTL. It turns out his father was not only an electronic engineer at the University of Surrey, but moreover the Phd supervisor to SSTL founder Sir Martin Sweeting as he designed the first low cost small satellites that our University spin-out has pioneered for the last 25 years. As a teenager, Evan even saw the original UoSAT in the University of Surrey and he is said to be a keen follower of SSTL’s progress.

You can watch Evan’s lecture on the Open University website, and followers who are interested can also hear Evan’s response – and revelations! – in this video from the Q&A session.

After some tough judging, engineers at SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre (SSC) have chosen the four winning Apps to go up in space on STRaND-1, the smartphone satellite. Entering a competition through Facebook, the four winners were chosen for their Apps’ scientific benefits, their creativity, or the App’s ability to get young people enthusiastic about science and technology.

Smartphones today are incredibly powerful, and whilst they share many features with conventional satellites such as cameras and sensors, a smartphone payload also means that STRaND-1 is packed with unique features. One of the main challenges for the Space App winners was to find an innovative way to incorporate some of the smartphone features, like the camera, screen, loudspeaker or microphone, in an App designed to run in the very different environment onboard a satellite. The winning Apps are diverse in nature, but all make smart use of the smartphone - enabling STRaND-1 to do things in space that no one has done before.

As any fan of the 1979 sci-fi classic ‘Alien’ will know, ‘in space no one can hear you scream’, but has anyone ever actually tested this hypothesis? That’s exactly what the student-run team Cambridge University Spaceflight group plans to do with their winning App. Their ‘Scream in Space!’ App uses the smartphone’s display, microphone and speakers to play videos of people screaming on a youtube video and record it in space. Aiming to interest young people in scientific methodology, the public are invited to upload videos of themselves to a website, from which the most popular screams will be played on the phone when the satellite is in orbit. Visitors to the website will later be able to view (and maybe hear!?) the results of this experiment.

Continue reading "SpaceApp winners worlds apart but orbit together"

Nigeriasat-1 and UK-DMC-1, part of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation coordinated by DMCii, have this week reached their 8th operational year in orbit. Launched on September the 27th 2003 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on board a Kosmos 3-M rocket, Nigeriasat-1 and UK-DMC-1 have been providing imagery to their respective operators, NASRDA in Abuja, Nigeria and SSTL in Guildford, Surrey for the last 8 years.

In addition to its remote sensing payload, UK-DMC-1 also carries three experimental payloads which have in their own ways proven to be revolutionary: The Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit (CLEO) was a pioneering implemention of an internet link in space. Working together, NASA Glenn Research Center, SSTL and Cisco Systems used UK-DMC-1 to demonstrate a prototype of the future Interplanetary Internet - being the first to evaluate the delay-tolerant networking bundle protocol in space.

The GPS Reflectometry experiment was the first dedicated experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of using GPS and GNSS reflections off the surface of the Earth to measure geophysical parameters, such as the roughness of the ocean surface. For the first time, spaceborne reflections were received from reflections off sea, ice, snow and land. A follow-on instrument has recently been designed and will be flying on TechDemoSat-1. The water Resistojet experiment was the first flight of this kind of technology. Water based propulsion avoids the complications and infrastructure required in using hazardous propellants at high pressures, and results in a useful level of thrust and efficiency at a very low cost.

SSTL prepares all its missions for End of Mission as a precautionary measure. UK-DMC-1 initiated its preparations in September 2010 and Nigeriasat-1 in June this year, which meant using up the remaining propellant to passivate the satellites. Using up the propellant also lowers the orbit and is an efficient way of reducing their remaining time in orbit. Since this work was completed, both satellites have continued their respective missions and will continue to provide imagery until End of Mission. The first satellite in the constellation Alsat-1, which was built by SSTL for the Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) and launched in 2002, completed its mission last year having exceeded its original 5-year design lifetime by 50% to a remarkable 7 years and 9 months.