Space blog - Entries tagged as satellite imaging

Gulf of Mexico oil slick captured by satellite

Thursday, June 3. 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 Image (C) DMCii, 2010.

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).

Continue reading "Gulf of Mexico oil slick captured by satellite"

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in In the news at 15:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: disaster

, dmcii

, gulf of mexico

, oil spill

, satellite imaging

, uk-dmc2

CHRIS celebrates 8th year onboard Proba-1

Thursday, November 5. 2009

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.

Chichester Harbour, UK

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.

A cropped CHRIS satellite image of San Diego

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.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in Remote sensing at 07:37 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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, earthobservation

, esa

, proba-1

, proba-2

, satellite imaging

, space

Video explains changing economics of space

Friday, August 28. 2009

For Space Blog readers that didn't catch our blog Watch SSTL and DMCii on TV, you can watch a clip of DMCii and SSTL in the Discovery Channel program How do they do it? below.

We would encourage anyone who missed the show to take a look at the official How do they do it website.

Find out more about SSTL's unique approach to space and to learn more about DMCii's satellite imaging using the DMC constellation visit the DMCii website.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in In the news at 11:53 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: satellite imaging

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UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1 launch buzz

Wednesday, July 15. 2009

SSTL is currently a hive of activity as the two new DMC constellation satellites UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1 are prepared for launch on 25th July.

The Earth observation missions, UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1, will be launched onboard a Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Saturday, 25th July 2009 at 18:46 UTC, 19:46 BST.

The spacecraft, which are both based on the 100kg class SSTL-100 micro satellite platform, will join the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), expanding the constellation to six operational satellites. The new satellites will enhance DMC satellite daily imaging capacity for applications such as deforestation mapping, urban planning, natural resource management, security, agriculture and disaster relief operations.

To find out more about the UK-DMC2 satellite, earth observation applications that it will participate in and its role in international disaster relief efforts visit the UK-DMC2 pages on the SSTL website.

Continue reading "UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1 launch buzz"

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in Launch updates at 12:41 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: earthobservation

, launch