Space

In a recent breakfast meeting, held at the University Of Surrey, SSTL Principal Engineer Dr Stuart Eves spoke to students about SSTL. The Company was formed in 1985 by the University of Surrey and was the first professional organisation to offer low-cost small satellites. SSTL has come along way since its University days and now employs more than 260 people at their purpose built offices on the Surrey Research Park, but the spirit of innovation and the will to challenge perceptions remains to this day.

60 attended the talk “the PC computers of space”, which provided an introduction to small satellites and highlights of missions that have been launched to date, including updates on the status of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and the GIOVE-A navigation satellite mission. The future applications of small satellites, including potential science, communications, and Earth observation missions were also discussed.

Stuart Eves is a Principal Engineer at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in Guildford. He spent 16 years with the UK Ministry of Defence where he initiated the TopSat satellite programme which is now on-orbit conducting its Earth-observation mission. He joined SSTL in 2004 and has an MSc in Astrophysics, a PhD in constellation design, and has been a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society for more than 15 years.

An, you can read his "Is Pluto really a planet" Space Blog here and school students will be interested to hear that Dr. Eves is responsible for a competition that will give the winner the chance to fly their experiment on an SSTL spacecraft! Keep your eye on Space Blog, or "subscribe" by RSS using the buttons on the top left for more information!

The UK is taking charge of an international group providing satellite data to support disaster relief across the world. The British National Space Centre and DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) will lead the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” from October 2007 until April 2008.

The Charter was set up in 2000 to provide satellite data and imagery to help governments and aid agencies plan emergency relief following major disasters. It has provided valuable information to relief agencies after earthquakes, floods, landslides and volcanic eruptions.

When the Charter is activated, Earth observation satellites operated by 14 international organisations are made freely available. The satellites provide data which is then used to produce maps and other information for emergency response efforts.

The UK-built Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) is a key member of the Charter. The five satellites were built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and are owned individually by Algeria, China, Nigeria, Turkey and the UK.

DMCii will chair the Charter Secretariat. DMCii Managing Director David Hodgson said: “Imagery from the DMC has been provided for more than 50 disasters and is particularly valuable in monitoring fires and floods.

“DMCii is also proud to provide regular emergency on-call services to the Charter and to task the world’s Earth observing satellites in response to disasters.”

Minister for Science and Innovation Ian Pearson said: “The UK is proud to lead this important group. We often think of space as being somewhere to explore, but it can also bring enormous benefits to us here on Earth."

Disaster Monitoring is one of the more direct forms of benefit from space, making it easier for the public to comprehend. The Charter is frequently called into action, or in Charter terms "activated". Charter members have been called on 34 times so far this year including on 14 September after floods devastated 12 countries in West Africa. The Charter was also activated in the aftermath of Hurricane Felix which hit Nicaragua and Honduras on 4 September 2007. The UK has activated the Charter twice this summer following the floods in north and south west England. Satellite data and images were used to produce maps of the flooded areas to help the Environment Agency assess the full extent of the damage.

To celebrate the centenary year of the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of Surrey from its origin in Battersea Polytechnic to the present day, members of the media are cordially invited to attend an evening with Elon Musk on Friday 5 October. The evening, which will commence at 5pm with a drinks reception followed by talks and a fork buffet, is preceded by a daytime robotic challenge event for teams from local schools.

Elon Musk will be talking about his enterprises into the space industry. He is CEO and CTO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), which he founded in 2002, who have a 10% stake in SSTL. SpaceX develops launch vehicles and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and beyond. Last year, SpaceX won the NASA competition to design, build and demonstrate operation of a commercial replacement for the Space Shuttle, which retires in 2010.

Prior to SpaceX, Mr. Musk co-founded PayPal, the world's leading Internet payment system, and served as the company's chairman and CEO. PayPal currently has over one hundred million customers in 190 countries, processes tens of billion dollars per year and went public on NASDAQ in early 2002. Mr. Musk was the largest shareholder of PayPal until the company was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in mid 2002.

Elon’s presentation will be preceded by a daytime robotic challenge in which teams of ten pupils from nine local Surrey and Hampshire schools will compete to build a lunar rover robot. The robots will then compete in a number of tasks mimicking the tasks a real lunar rover would be expected to perform. Each school will be able to keep its robot and the school of the team with the winning robot will win £1,000.

For more infomation contact Peter La, Press Office at the University of Surrey, Tel: 01483 689191.

SSTL’s Group Executive Chairman, Sir Martin Sweeting stated in a press release today that he believes the increased competition resulting from the June proposal by the European Commission to fund the Galileo satellite navigation system through the public sector will reduce the cost and risk involved.

”The increased competition will have significant benefits,” stated SSTL’s Group Executive Chairman, Sir Martin Sweeting. “The public sector will soon be in a position to place contracts that give the European taxpayer better value for money and step up the pace of delivering the system”.

SSTL aims to support the European Commission and European Space Agency (ESA) by building on its experience gained through the successful GIOVE-A mission, to provide best value in the operational phase of Galileo. GIOVE-A was developed under a €28M contract signed with ESA in the second half of 2003. The mission’s primary aim was to broadcast Galileo signals from space so that Europe could claim the frequencies filed for Galileo with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The satellite was designed, built, tested and launched before the end of 2005 – on-time and on-budget. GIOVE-A has transmitted Galileo signals for over 18 months and remains the only Galileo spacecraft in operation. Following the success of GIOVE-A, ESA placed a further contract with SSTL in March 2007 for a second satellite named GIOVE-A2.

Sir Martin added:

“It’s clear that a second source of operational satellites is needed, both to provide healthy competition and to reduce risk to the schedule of the Galileo system. SSTL has begun discussions with other key European suppliers, with the aim of forming a team capable of supplying a significant portion of Galileo whilst maintaining the winning formula employed on GIOVE-A. We expect these discussions to be finalised in October, in time to provide the public sector with a much needed competitive option”.

Galileo is a joint initiative between ESA and the European Commission. When fully deployed in the early years of the next decade, it will be the first non-military positioning system to offer global coverage.