3 aerospace awards for SSTL

In the news

SSTL achievements have been recognised in by three prestigious awards from the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS). The RAeS awards are considered the most prestigious and long-standing awards in global aerospace honouring achievement, innovation and excellence

The team responsible for the building and delivery of the Galileo test satellite, GIOVE-A, received the Team Silver Award. This was accompanied by the Geoffrey Pardoe Space Award for an exceptional contribution to space, demonstrating first class risk and project management skills in designing and placing into orbit a complex, yet cost-effective satellite. Dr Mike Cutter was presented with the Society's Bronze Award for work of merit in the design, manufacture and exploitation in space of the CHRIS hyper-spectral camera.

SSTL was awarded the GIOVE-A contract in the summer of 2003 with a strict schedule to launch the satellite before the end of 2005. As the largest and most complex satellite SSTL had ever developed, the GIOVE-A project brought together a large multi-disciplinary team of up to 70 people to support development.

GIOVE-A team receive award
A core team of 10-20 people was responsible for the majority of the project co-ordination, system and payload engineering to deliver GIOVE-A to schedule. This core team was also essential to subsequent key phases of the mission such as the launch, commissioning and in-orbit test campaigns. Their understanding of GIOVE-A ensured that these critical activities were performed safely and efficiently, leading to the successful achievement of the main mission objectives.

Dr Mike Cutter receives award
CHRIS is the highest resolution hyper-spectral camera ever to be flown in space, made possible by BNSC funding. The design is particularly light in weight (14kg) and thrifty in its use of electrical power (8W), enabling it to be flown on a small satellite platform. CHRIS has been operational in space since the launch of PROBA in October 2001 and is in constant demand by more than 80 scientific groups across Europe and North America, Australia and China who use the flexible hyper-spectral modes of the instrument to analyse how various objects, materials and scenes can be analysed from orbit. Such research underpins important advances in remote sensing for environmental, farming, land use planning, water management and many other applications.

It is not the first time that the achievements of SSTL staff have been recognised by the RAeS. In 1998 Dr Marc Fouquet was presented with the Geoffrey Pardoe Space Award for a significant contribution to space as the principle designer of imaging systems for Earth observation and star tracking.

The Royal Aeronautical Society has been honouring outstanding achievers in the global aerospace industry since 1908, when Wilbur and Orville Wright came to London to receive the Society’s first two Gold Medals. In the years that have followed, honouring world aerospace achievers has become a permanent tradition of the Society. The Society’s Awards Programme rewards individuals who have made an exceptional contribution to aerospace, whether for a single outstanding contribution or achievement, a major technical innovation, for exceptional leadership, long and valued service, or for work that will further advance aerospace.

This entry was posted by Robin Wolstenholme on Tuesday, July 17. 2007 at 12:45. and is filed under GIOVE-A, In the news. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own blog. All new comments are subject to moderation before being displayed.
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