Business

SSTL have just signed a contract in Abuja for the supply of the NIGERIASAT-2 Earth observation satellite, related ground infrastructure and a training programme to further establish a national indigenous space capability in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The selection of SSTL by the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) of Nigeria follows a detailed technical evaluation and due diligence undertaken by NASRDA's procurement advisor, Telesat of Canada, confirming the UK company's position as the world-leading supplier of advanced operational small satellites.

The new 300kg satellite, for launch in 2009, will provide Nigeria with valuable geographically referenced high-resolution satellite imaging for applications in mapping, water resources management, agricultural land use, population estimation, health hazard monitoring and disaster mitigation and management.

By signing this contract with SSTL, Nigeria takes another large step in the development of their National Space Plan, building upon the existing NIGERIASAT-1 Earth Observation microsatellite supplied by SSTL in 2003 and the NIGCOMSAT-1 communications satellite currently being built by China for launch in 2008.

Commenting on the contract with SSTL, NASRDA's Director General, Professor Robert Boroffice, stated that, "this contract is the next step in Nigeria's long term plans to use space for the benefit of Nigeria and Africa. We are convinced that space provides a cost-effective means of addressing many of the issues facing African nations - such as mapping, water resources management, agricultural land use monitoring, population estimation, health hazard monitoring and disaster mitigation and management."

SSTL will develop NIGERIASAT-2 based upon its new generation of high-resolution Earth observation satellites to provide affordable access to space, using the latest advanced small satellite technologies developed from the TOPSAT and Beijing-1 missions launched successfully last year.

Commenting on the contract award, SSTL's CEO Sir Martin Sweeting noted, "I am delighted that NASRDA has decided to continue its successful partnership with SSTL on such a critical operational and training programme for Nigeria. Nigeria is a very valued member of the DMC and its continued cooperation with SSTL and DMCII ensures the operational status of the international DMC is extended even further. NASRDA's decision also confirms SSTL as the world-leading supplier of operational small satellites."

The contract with NASRDA follows "hot on the heels" of the signature by Deimos (Spain) on 10th October 2006 on a contract with SSTL for an EO microsatellite to join the next generation of the international DMC constellation. With NIGERIASAT-2, Nigeria will also join the second generation DMC, with the satellite being fully controlled from NASRDA's new satellite Mission Control Centre facilities in Abuja.

The DMC owes its success to a unique concept created and led by SSTL whereby each member of the DMC consortium (Algeria, China, Nigeria, Spain, Turkey, UK) owns and operates its own satellite, whilst co-operating with the other DMC members on satellite tasking and image capture to achieve a 24-hour revisit worldwide. The DMC satellites have been manufactured by SSTL and their operation in orbit is coordinated by DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii), a subsidiary of SSTL.

The NIGERIASAT-2 contract adds to an already successful year for SSTL and is expected to create up to 50 new high technology jobs in the UK. Alongside the recent contract with Deimos (Spain) and the successful launches of TOPSAT, Beijing-1 and GIOVE-A missions at the end of 2005, this contract further illustrates SSTL?s ability to manage multiple complex space missions successfully, at low cost and within short delivery timescales.

SSTL were host to ex-ESA astronaut Pedro Duque this month. Pedro worked at ESA (European Space Agency) for 20 years, the last 14 of which were spent as an Astronaut Pedro has visited space twice - on the US shuttle in 1998 and on a Soyuz launched mission to the International Space Station in 2003 as part of the ESA?s Cervantes Mission.

Now, Pedro is the CEO of the new company "Deimos Imaging SL", a subsidiary of Deimos Space SL. Pedro was visiting SSTL so that his company could finalise a contract for an Earth imaging satellite named DEIMOS.

Click the thumbnail to enlarge - (from left to right) James Penson, Adrian Black, Alfonso Barreiro - Deimos Imaging, Petro Duque - Deimos Imaging, Miguel Bello Mora - Deimos Space, Abel Calle Montes - Univerisdad de Vallavolid, Paul Stephens (DMCii), Jenny Lorenzi.

This satellite will be built by SSTL to be ready for launch early in 2008 and will form part of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). The satellite will provide imagery for commercial applications, for government use and for rapid-response following disasters.

This contract with SSTL will provide Deimos with an enhanced version of the DMC wide area imaging system. The new system will image 600km wide swaths of the Earth in three spectral bands at a ground resolution of 22 metres, rather than using the standard 32m DMC imager. The contract also covers the provision of the ground system to allow operation of the satellite from Valladolid, Spain and it establishes SSTL as the launch agent for procurement of launch services.

This contract is Deimos' first step into satellite ownership. Since it was formed in 2001, Deimos has grown rapidly to become one of Europe's leading Space consultancies with over 200 staff. Mr Durque commented, "we went to Surrey because they could offer us excellent value with a proven product."

Mr Duque also acknowledged the unique operation of the DMC, "by procuring one satellite, we could benefit from being a part of a larger constellation which is already operational. This means that we can receive data from space before our satellite is launched and, once launched, obtain imagery of Spain far faster than we could with a single satellite. Our business case relies on this."

Some 200 International business and government leaders gathered this week in Washington DC at the Commercial Remote Sensing Satellite Symposium hosted by NOAA and USGS to explore the current issues facing this important business sector.

The symposium included keynote speeches and interactive panel discussions on a range of topics pertaining to the commercial remote sensing global market. Sir Martin Sweeting headed up the second day and addressed the “Challenges of the International Environment”.

Sir Martin focused his attention on  the role of small satellites in changing the economics of space and particularly their impact on Earth observation and remote sensing. He used high resolution (2.5m & 4m) images from the latest satellites built by SSTL for the UK and China (TOPSAT & BEIJING-1) to illustrate the dramatic increase in capabilities now offered by EO satellites - all within with a mass of about 150kg and costing around £10M.

Last week Dr Tanya Vladimirova and Dr Xiaofeng Wu from the VLSI Design and Embedded Systems (VDES) Research Group of the Surrey Space Centre (SSC) attended the 1st NASA/ESA conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems in Istanbul. Dr Tanya Vladimirova gave a keynote address entitled "Addressing the challenges of microelectronics design for space applications" which was very well received. Dr Xiaofeng Wu presented two papers "Enabling Technologies for Distributed Picosatellite Missions in LEO" co-authored by T. Vladimirova, K. Sidibeh, D. Barnhart and A.-H. Jallad and "On-Board Partial Run-Time Reconfiguration for Pico-Satellite Constellations" co-authored by T. Vladimirova.

The £1-million EPSRC project ESPACENET: "Evolvable Networks of Intelligent and Secure Integrated and Distributed Reconfigurable System-on-Chip Sensor Nodes for Aerospace based Monitoring and Diagnostics" jointly undertaken by the University of Surrey (SSC), University of Edinburgh, University of Essex, University of Kent, SSTL, JPL(USA), Epson and Spiral Gateway, was officially launched at the conference.