On October 15th and 16th, the great and the good will descend on Brussels to discuss the future of the European Space Policy. The conference, which is named “The ambitions of Europe in Space” will address Europe’s most ambitious programmes: GALILEO and GMES and their prospective benefits to technology, industry and society.

Prominent guests will include President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, the President of the new European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, and the President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Philippe Maystadt. Several others European leaders, such as Vice-Presidents Antonio Tajani and Jacques Barrot, or Jean-Jacques Dordain, General Manager of ESA also confirmed their participation.

Conference organiser Business Bridge Europe (BBE) will bring together European Institutions, national and local public authorities, R&D centres, manufacturers and everyone interested in meeting and discussing space policy, space systems’ applications and their financing.

On the 15th SSTL CEO, Dr. Matt Perkins will deliver a keynote speech about “The external dimension of the space authority: the example of Africa” alongside other industry representatives. The following day, DMCii Managing Director, Dave Hodgson will join other remote sensing experts from ESA and industry to discuss “Environment, Energy, Home Land Security and Agriculture”.

Continue reading "GALILEO and GMES headline EU space conference"

In the week the whole world celebrates the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings in 1969, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has begun a consultation which aims to thrust the UK space sector forward for the next 40 years and beyond.

Lord Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation, kicked off the consultation at the London launch of a new European Space Agency (ESA) facility at Harwell yesterday. The consultation will seek views on whether the current organisation which oversees space in the UK, the British National Space Centre (BNSC), is the best funding structure to meet the challenges of the future and deliver the greatest benefit to the country.

The UK has a hugely successful sector which is second only to the USA in space science, contributing £6.5bn a year to the UK economy and supporting 68,000 jobs.

However, as the world becomes increasingly dependent on advances in space science and in order to safeguard the UK’s “critical mass” of skills and expertise, today’s consultation is seeking views on the appetite for a single agency to better co-ordinate the UK’s civil space strategy.

Currently, British space policy is devised by a "partnership" of government departments and research councils operating devolved budgets. Speaking to the BBC, Lord Drayson said Britain would benefit from a more strategic approach.

Both in terms of raising the profile of space, which is a fantastic asset in the UK, and in terms of organising ourselves more efficiently, I think that an agency is the way to go.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology looked at the issue in 2007 and narrowly concluded that an agency was only worth setting up if the UK increased its civil spend on space substantially. At the moment, the government invests some £250m a year, mostly channelled through the European Space Agency (ESA).

In the same article, Phil Willis MP, the Liberal Democrat chair of the HoC Science and Technology Committee welcomed the consiultation but questioned it's significance. He commented,

My personal view is that it is still worth having [even without a budgetary increase], but quite frankly without very significant additional funds, what you have is an organisation in name with very little clout.

Lord Drayson has cited the UK's involvement in the ESA GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) programme as a success. Indeed, many politicians agreed it was the perfect project for the UK because of the country's vocal position on climate change.

However, Britain was indecisive and joined in the multi-billion-euro venture too late after some last-minute funding was organised by the Treasury. Industry has complained that the confusion over GMES cost UK companies the chance to bid for satellite contracts.

Continue reading "Would a Space Agency boost UK Space?"

Lord Drayson, Minister of State for Science and Innovation visited SSTL on Friday 6th February. He met Sir Martin Sweeting (SSTL founder and board chairman), Matt Perkins (CEO), Paul Brooks (Business Development Director) and Phil Davies (ESA business development manager).

Lord Drayson is responsible for developing and delivering policy that will contribute to world-class research in the UK and the conversion of science into wealth through innovation.

The UK space industry is thriving, with innovative companies like SSTL and the businesses that it cooperates with making a valuable contribution to the national economy and developing expertise and knowledge within the UK technology sector. This year promises to be a busy year in space, as developing nations step up their plans, the market of commercially operated small satellites increases develops and Europe expects a busy year in space. As a pioneer and market leader in small satellites, SSTL has seen the Smallsat market begin to mature as the benefits and capabilities become apparent, stimulating increased competition from both national and internationally active manufacturers throughout the world.

The SSTL team briefed Lord Drayson on several topics including SSTL's business plans, its involvement with Europe's Galileo and GMES programmes and the UK's national space activities including the MoonLITE lunar exploration mission.

Following the briefings, Lord Drayson was given a tour of the facilities which included a visit to the constellation control centre, the DMCii disaster monitoring imaging processing centre and the satellite integration facilities. At the latter of these LD was shown 2 satellites which a ready for launch - the next 2 DMC satellites - UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1 (for Spain).

The new name of the European GMES Programme (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) has been unveiled: Kopernikus. The European Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen announced the name today at the GMES 2008 Lille forum.

The decision was unveilled at the same time as SSTL's sister company DMCii announced new developments in satellite imaging constellation quality control. A new framework, which is being implemented by DMCii, holds great potential for quality control and consistency in multi-source imaging projects such as Kopernikus.

DMCii's Chief Scientist Dr Mackin commented:

“This has never been done before and its application holds great potential for projects where imaging is sourced from multiple providers and satellites. As a GMES contributor, DMCii has begun implementing this new quality control framework within the Disaster Monitoring Constellation to validate it for wider use.”

The European Space Agency (ESA) has expressed interest in the techniques that Dr Mackin presented in his role as one of the UK’s representatives in the Working Group for Constellation Calibration on the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). The first dedicated GMES satellites, Sentinel 2 and Sentinel 3, will demonstrate (at least in part) the new framework as a quality control measure for GMES.

The Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) is a unique cooperation between partners that own satellites and share their data. DMCii coordinates the constellation to provide high quality commercial imaging services and rapid disaster monitoring programmes. The DMC’s imaging capacity is set to grow to more than 10 million sq km per day by the end of 2008 with the addition of new satellites, UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1, which share a 20metre 600km swath imaging capability. The UK-DMC2 satellite will also offer a direct downlink service to X-band groundstations.

Last year, DMCii imaged 38 European countries for GMES in the 6 months between April and October 2007 as a GMES contributing mission. DMCii delivered precisely positioned data in each national map projection. This was the first time that the whole of Europe had been successfully imaged at high resolution in a single year.

Kopernikus is the "second flagship"
Europe is presenting Kopernikus at the forum as the second flagship of the European Space Policy following Galileo, the first flagship. The GMES 2008 forum is organised in the framework of the European Union French Presidency.

Pre-operational GMES/Kopernikus services in the areas of ocean, land, atmosphere, risks, climate change and security are being presented at the forum to decision makers and users. All actors are stressing the need for long-term sustainability of this public programme, as well as the need to grant continuity of data and services for the users.

At Lille, the European Commission (EC) stressed ESA's role as coordinator of the Kopernikus Space Component with its development and procurement role for the Sentinel Satellite series and its role of coordinator for contributing missions by Member States and other relevant partners of Kopernikus, such as the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

Over the last 30 years ESA has been developing Earth Observation satellites, notably all the European meteorological satellites in cooperation with EUMETSAT, but also the ERS-1, -2 and Envisat satellites, which are mostly oriented to perform measurements relevant for environmental and climate research.

Based on this long-lasting experience and on requirements derived from applications, ESA is already developing new missions called 'Sentinels'. The five Sentinel families under development will feature radar and multi-spectral imaging as well as ocean and atmospheric monitoring capacities. The industrial phase of the first three of the five satellites is already ongoing.

As the 15th century scientist Copernicus revolutionised the understanding of our universe, Kopernikus brings the Earth back to the 'centre' of our concerns and will help us care for a better and safer world.