Nigerian ministerial visit

Friday, September 14. 2007

Nigeria's newly appointed Minister of Science, Chief Grace Ekpiwhre, began her new role with a visit to UK space company, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). The Honourable Minister was joined by Professor Robert Boroffice, Director-General, National Space Research and Development Agency, for briefing talks on a two-satellite contract currently under manufacture at SSTL for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Nigerian ministerial visit
A new-design SSTL-300 enhanced microsatellite, to be called N2, will boost the country's space capability with a high performance operational mission delivering the latest in high resolution Earth imaging, to join the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) when launched in 2009. The imaging system will include a high-resolution 2.5-metre panchromatic camera with two further multispectral imagers: 5-metre 4-band (20km swath) and medium resolution 22-metre 4-band (300km swath).

Mrs Ekpiwhre also met with 11 Nigerian engineers currently working alongside SSTL engineers on the development of a training satellite. The SSTL-100 satellite, to be called NX, is an integral part of a know-how transfer programme that is providing the Nigerian engineers with hands-on experience in all aspects of spacecraft analysis, build, integration and test. NX will carry a 22-metre multispectral imaging system with ultra-wide 600km swath. The engineers will fully manage the complete life-cycle of the satellite, with responsibility for the delivery of the spacecraft to full flight specification.

The Minister visited both SSTL sites in Guildford, including the manufacturing clean rooms where she saw modules for the N2 spacecraft under construction.

This latest contract is the second between SSTL and Nigeria. NigeriaSat-1 was launched into the DMC in 2003 and continues to provide the country with 32-metre resolution imaging, used by the Government to monitor pollution, manage land use and monitor medium-scale changes to the landscape. N2 will enhance that capability significantly, providing Nigeria with hundreds of valuable geographically referenced images each day, for applications in mapping, water resource management, agricultural land use, population estimation, health hazard monitoring and disaster mitigation and management.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in NIGERIASAT-2, Technology at 10:40 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
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SSTL to develop low cost Moon satellite for NASA

Friday, August 24. 2007
Lunar exploration

Last Monday at the 21st AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites , SSTL announced that they have been awarded a contract for the study phase of a potential joint US-UK lunar orbiter mission to be called Magnolia.

This first phase of the contract will run for 9-months, resulting in a preliminary design. The contract also includes a package of training from SSTL and the University of Surrey, that will share the know-how accrued by SSTL over the last 25 years with Mississippi State University (MSU) and NASA Stennis Space Center to lower the cost of future missions to the Moon.

MSU’s David Shaw stated:

“MSU is committed to developing a small satellite capability in Mississippi and believes that SSTL is the best partner with whom to achieve that aim”. SSTL’s founder and Group Executive Chairman, Sir Martin Sweeting, added: “We are delighted to be working with our US partners on this programme and look forward to the exciting possibility of a joint US-UK lunar mission. SSTL is committed to driving down the cost of space missions in Earth orbit and beyond.”

A proposed Magnolia design
This isn't the first time SSTL have worked on lunar missions. Last year, SSTL performed a lunar exploration design study for the UK government’s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (now subsumed into the newly created Science & Technology Facilities Council). The study was supported by a group of UK scientists and showed the feasibility of a pair of low cost missions known as MoonLITE and MoonRaker.

In the past, SSTL has developed equipment for interplanetary missions such as the Rosetta comet chaser and recently delivered a payload processor for a US radar to fly onboard the 2008 Indian lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1. Looking further into space, SSTL has performed a European Space Agency feasibility study for a low cost mission to Venus and has studied potential missions to near-Earth asteroids and Earth re-entry for the future return of samples from Mars. Magnolia marks SSTL’s next step beyond low Earth Orbit.

The contract follows a UK-US cooperation agreement on lunar exploration activities. The next phase of the Magnolia mission is planned to start in 2008 and could lead to the launch of the mission in 2010.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in Cooperation, Lunar exploration, Space at 10:55 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)
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