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A bid to make environmental disaster monitoring faster and cheaper was backed today by Science Minister Lord Sainsbury.
 
He announced funding from the British National Space Centre (BNSC) for three small satellite projects under the MOSAIC programme. MOSAIC is the BNSC Small Satellite Programme.
 
Lord Sainsbury said: "All three of the successful projects offer innovative ways of demonstrating small satellite technology and opening up new and attractive markets for their use."
 
The three winning projects are:
 
* TOPSAT, a mission led by Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA) to   deliver low cost, relatively high resolution images direct to local users   wherever they need them.
 
* GEMINI, from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), to develop a low   cost small geostationary satellite for telecommunications.
 
* Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), also from SSTL, to develop a   network of affordable micro-satellites, which could provide daily imaging   of disaster areas, and thus help get help rapidly to where it is most needed.
 
Lord Sainsbury added: "Collaborative space missions have historically been large in order to meet the research needs of many partners. The use of constellations of small satellites can drive down the cost of access to space for governments and commercial users. This will open up new services for which a space-based solution would previously have been too expensive."
 
Under the MOSAIC programme £15m has been made available over three years from 2000/01 for project support to partnerships involving both industrial partners and end users. Successful proposals will be part funded up to the level of 50%. The remainder of the funds can be made available either by the industrial or user partners. This funding is intended to help transfer the UK’s world leading capability in small satellites from the academic into the scientific and commercial markets. The aim will be to stimulate industry to invest in small satellite missions, particularly for satellite communications, the largest and most rapidly expanding market for space products.
 
Notes to Editors
 
1. MOSAIC was launched in December 1999. The announcement of opportunity   for researchers and companies was released in January 2000.
 
2. Further information on each of the three successful projects is as follows.
 
GEMINI
 
A proposal led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd to develop a low cost small geostationary communications satellite to support a diverse range of services such as telephone, television and radio. SSTL’s approach to cost effective solutions by employing commercial off the shelf technologies will, hopefully, provide a modest number of channels for a range of services traditionally accommodated by satellites in geo but at a significantly lower entry price for a developing nation. It is hoped that this demonstration mission will open up a brand new and commercially attractive export market for this system and for its UK supply chain.
 
TOPSAT
 
This is a mission led by DERA to provide relatively high-resolution imagery direct to the local user from a low cost small satellite. The mission consists of an advanced optical camera, able to form images of the earth at 2.5 m resolution, integrated with a micro-satellite that is capable of delivery this imagery direct to a mobile ground station. The mission has been made possible through the collaborative efforts of DERA, SSTL, RAL and NRSC and makes good use of the UK’s world class capability in small satellites and high performance space missions.
 
Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC)
 
The third successful project is a proposal for a Disaster Monitoring Constellation sponsored by SSTL. Every year natural and man-made disasters cause devastation around the world through loss of life, widespread human suffering and huge economic losses. Current earth observation satellites offer infrequent images and often delivery of critical images may take months due to periodic cloud cover and tasking conflict. They are also very expensive and designed to be general-purpose instruments to meet many wide-ranging user requirements with spectral imaging characteristics that are not ideally suited to disaster monitoring functions. SSTL and its partners propose a network of affordable micro- satellites providing imaging on a daily basis as an affordable solution to the problem of disaster assessment and monitoring from space.
 
3. Further information can be found on the BNSC website:
        http://www.bnsc.gov.uk
 
  DERA’s website is
        http://www.dera.gov.uk
 
  and SSTL’s website is
        http://www.sstl.co.uk.
 
*****
 
Surrey Satellite Technology Limited
Surrey Space Centre
University of Surrey
Guildford
GU2 7XH UK
Tel: +44 (0)1483 259 278
Fax +44 (0)1483 259 503
 
SSTL Wins £11M BNSC funding for three satellite projects
 
25th July 2000
 
At a press conference today at the Farnborough Air Show, the UK Minister for Science, Technology & Space, Lord Sainsbury, announced the winners of the BNSC’s £15M Small Satellite Initiative "MOSAIC" programme.
 
The Minister announced the award to SSTL of approximately £11M funding for three projects: the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) of Earth Observation microsatellites, the GEMINI Geostationary communications minisatellite, and the TOPSAT high resolution EO enhanced microsatellite for military Earth Imaging.
 
GEMINI is a project led by SSTL to develop a low cost small geostationary communications minisatellite to support a diverse range of data, telephone, television and radio services. SSTL’s geostationary minisatellite, employing cost effective commercial-off-the-shelf technologies (COTS), will enable customers to own a dedicated communications satellite to provide real-time services but at a fraction of the conventional cost — opening a new and commercially attractive export market for Britain.
 
Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) is an international project proposed and led by SSTL to construct a network of five affordable microsatellites in low Earth orbit to provide daily imaging for rapid-response disaster monitoring and mitigation. Every year natural and man-made disasters around the world cause devastation, loss of life, widespread human suffering and huge economic losses. Daily monitoring from the high vantage point of space can greatly aid the response, management and mitigation of such disasters wherever they occur in the world. Current Earth observation satellites only offer infrequent image revisit and delivery of critical information may take months due to periodic cloud cover and tasking conflicts — thus images of disaster-stricken areas are often available too late to be of real use. A constellation of conventional large Earth observation satellites able to provide world-wide daily imaging would be prohibitively expensive. However, SSTL has developed highly capable 50kg microsatellites that can provide high quality multispectral imaging at 1/50th the conventional cost thus making the constellation and this humanitarian service both practicable and affordable.
 
TOPSAT is a mission to provide high-resolution Earth images direct to the local user from a low cost enhanced microsatellite in a project led by the UK Defence Evaluation & Research Agency (DERA). TOPSAT consists an advanced panchromatic optical camera able to image the Earth at 2.5m resolution, integrated with a microsatellite that is capable of delivering this imagery direct to a mobile ground terminal. The mission has been made possible through the collaborative
efforts of DERA, SSTL, RAL and NRSC and makes good use of the UK’s world class capability in small satellites and high performance space missions.
 
Commenting from the Farnborough Air Show, Professor Martin Sweeting, CEO & Managing Director of SSTL said: "Winning funding for all three projects awarded by BNSC is a remarkable achievement and worth
approximately £11M to SSTL. Today’s announcement recognises SSTL’s lead in small satellite technology, not only in the UK, but worldwide. The BNSC funding will catalyse these exciting and commercially important missions."
 
The news follows last month’s successful launch of the Surrey’s latest two satellites — a microsatellite for China, Tsinghua-1, which is the first demonstrator for the Disaster Monitoring Constellation, and SNAP-1, the world’s most advanced nanosatellite weighing just 6.5kg. Both satellites are performing excellently in orbit. These latest launches bring SSTL’s total missions to 18, with a further microsatellite built at SSTL for Malaysia to be launched from Baikonur on a converted SS18 (Dnepr) next month.
 
With more than 100 orbit-years of flight heritage, SSTL now offers a range of commercial small satellites from 6kg nanosatellites; 50-130kg microsatellites and 400kg minisatellites, carrying communications, Earth observation and science payloads.
 
Further information from:
 
Audrey Nice
Press & Publicity
Email: Email: a.nice@ee.surrey.ac.uk
 
Dr Wei Sun
Marketing Manager
Email: s.wei@ee.surrey.ac.uk
 
Editors’ Notes
 
"MOSAIC" — Micro Satellite Applications in Collaboration is the name given to the BNSC small satellite programme which was announced by Lord Sainsbury in December 1999 with £15M support provided over 3 years (2000 – 2003). The purpose of this BNSC support is to co-fund initial demonstration missions in partnership with UK companies and users and to stimulate the development of key small satellite technologies and payloads.
 
The key objective of MOSAIC is to ensure full commercial and user exploitation of the UK small satellite capability and maintain a competitive manufacturing base in the UK. The UK has a world leading capability in small satellites and the BNSC funding is intended to foster the application of this capability in scientific and commercial markets.