Sir Martin receives French award

Thursday, December 20. 2007

Each year the French Academy of Air and Space awards its Grand Prize in recognition of a “person or a team, European or international, who stands out because of a high-quality scientific, technical or cultural action concerning aerospace, by contributing to or helping spread new knowledge.” The Academy has awarded this year’s Silver medal to SSTL founder and Group Executive Chariman Sir Martin Sweeting.

The Grand Prize award ceremony was held on November 23, 2007 during the Academy’s annual assembly in the “Salle des Illustres” at the Place du Capitole, Toulouse.

Mr Jean Broquet, former Technical Director of EADS Astrium, France, received the award on behalf of Martin during the open session of Air and Space Academy on Friday Nov 23rd at Toulouse. The presentation of Martin's achievements and successes was made by Gérard Brachet former head of CNES and currently Vice President of the Academy. He gave a general view of Martin's activities and of his pioneer role and he pointed out, in particular, the major role of SSTL for securing the frequency slots allocated to Galileo, with GIOVE-A.

Jean Broquet had the opportunity to say few words including a reference to Martin's colleagues of both SSTL and Surrey Space Centre (SSC) for their contribution to the SSTL missions.

Bookmark Sir Martin receives French award  at del.icio.us Digg Sir Martin receives French award Bloglines Sir Martin receives French award Technorati Sir Martin receives French award Bookmark Sir Martin receives French award  at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Sir Martin receives French award  at reddit.com Bookmark Sir Martin receives French award  at NewsVine

Team TopSat earns RAeS award

Tuesday, December 4. 2007
In the news

Last week at the Royal Aeronautical Society awards ceremony , the team responsible for the successful TopSat Earth observation mission, was awarded the Society's Silver Medal.


"Team TopSat" collect RAeS award
TopSat was developed for the MOD and BNSC by QinetiQ, SSTL, RAL and Infoterra and has been collecting tactical 3m imagery of the Earth for more than two years, setting a new world record for "resolution per mass of satellite". The engineering model is now on display in the Science Museum.

The award was accepted on behalf of the TopSat team by Dr Stuart Eves, the godfather of the programme, and Jenny Harding, SSTL's Projects Director who managed the programme.

This is the fourth Royal Aeronautical Society award won by SSTL staff this year. The team responsible for GIOVE-A received the Team Silver Award as well as the Geoffrey Pardoe Space Award, whilst Dr Mike Cutter was awarded the Society's Bronze Award for the design and manufacture of the CHRIS optical imaging system.

TopSat launched was launched in 2005. The small satellite's primary mission objective was to demonstrate that a microsatellite could deliver responsive high-resolution imagery directly from a satellite to ground terminals within the same footprint. Having fulfilled its original objectives, the satellite is now available for commercial service under the TopSat Consortium: QinetiQ (who own the satellite), SSTL, RAL and Infoterra, all original partners in the mission.

Bookmark Team TopSat earns RAeS award  at del.icio.us Digg Team TopSat earns RAeS award Bloglines Team TopSat earns RAeS award Technorati Team TopSat earns RAeS award Bookmark Team TopSat earns RAeS award  at YahooMyWeb Bookmark Team TopSat earns RAeS award  at reddit.com Bookmark Team TopSat earns RAeS award  at NewsVine