AlSAT-1, the first satellite in the international Disaster
Monitoring Constellation (DMC) led by SSTL, has arrived
today at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome to be prepared for a 28
November launch.

The 90kg enhanced microsatellite is Algeria’s first
national satellite and has been designed and constructed
by SSTL at the Surrey Space Centre (UK) within a
collaborative programme with the Algerian Centre National
des Techniques Spatiales (CNTS).

AlSAT-1 is part of a wider international collaboration
to launch the first constellation of Earth observation
satellites specifically designed for disaster monitoring.
The AlSAT-1 enhanced microsatellite carries specially-
designed Earth imaging cameras which provide 32-metres
resolution imaging in 3 spectral bands (NIR, red, green)
with an extremely wide imaging swath of 600km on the
ground that enables a revisit of the same area anywhere
in the world at least every 4 days with just a single
satellite. AlSAT-1 is the first satellite in the
Surrey-led Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) which
will comprises 5 microsatellites in low Earth orbit by
the end of 2003.

A joint British-Algerian team of SSTL & CNTS engineers
successfully completed the manufacture and pre-flight
testing of the enhanced microsatellite during a 15-month
programme which included know-how training for the 11
Algerian engineers and scientists at SSTL in England. A
mission control groundstation has also been installed by
SSTL at CNTS in Algeria and engineers are carrying out
final checks there in readiness for the launch.

Earlier this month, AlSAT-1 left SSTL on its journey from
the UK, via Moscow, to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern
Russia where it is now being readied for launch on a
Kosmos 3-M rocket. A joint SSTL & Algerian team has
travelled to Plesetsk to prepare the spacecraft for
launch — scheduled for 0700 GMT on 28th November 2002
into a 686km sun-synchronous orbit. The launch, which
has been arranged by SSTL for CNTS, is being provided by
Rosoboronexport in conjunction with the Russian Space
Agency, Polyot and the Russian Space Forces.

In mid-2003, following the validation of AlSAT-1 in
orbit after launch, a further 4 microsatellites will be
launched into the same orbit as AlSAT-1 to complete the
constellation and provide a daily imaging revisit
capability worldwide. SSTL is building these
microsatellites in collaboration with Nigeria, Turkey &
the UK.

SSTL is also leading a follow-on DMC-2 constellation,
including higher spatial resolution down to 2.5-metres
GSD panchromatic and 5-metres multispectral, in
collaboration with China, Thailand, UK & Vietnam with a
first launch into the same orbit already arranged for
mid-2004.

Photo available at:
http://www.sstl.co.uk/primages/AlSATnew_complete.jpg

Notes for editors:

The Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) is a remarkable
example of international collaboration in space. The concept
of the DMC, whereby each satellite in the constellation is
built & owned by an individual organisation but launched
into the same orbit and operated co-operatively, was
conceived and first presented in 1996 by SSTL at the
International Astronautical Federation (IAF) Congress
held in Beijing. This novel form of collaboration enables
smaller organisations to achieve the benefits of a
constellation of satellites in orbit whilst at the same
time maintaining independent ownership and low cost. The
DMC will be the world’s first civilian Earth Observation
(EO) constellation to provide a daily imaging revisit
capability of this resolution anywhere on the Earth’s
surface.

Led by SSTL, seven organisations from Africa, Asia and
Europe have formed a “DMC Consortium” and agreed to
contribute microsatellites into the constellation. The DMC
Consortium comprises a partnership between organisations
in Algeria, China, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam and
the United Kingdom. The objective of the Consortium is to
derive the maximum mutual benefit from the constellation
through collaboration and cooperation between the DMC
partners. The international partners in the DMC Consortium
have agreed to exchange their DMC satellite resources
and data to achieve a daily Earth observation imaging
capability for disaster monitoring and other dynamic
phenomena as well as for national and commercial
applications.

Each year natural and man-made disasters around the
world cause devastation, loss of life, widespread human
suffering and huge economic losses. Images of disaster-
stricken areas are often made available too late to be
of real use to relief co-ordination agencies on the
ground as current Earth observation satellites offer only
infrequent image revisits and the delivery of critical
information may take months due to periodic cloud cover
and tasking conflicts. Due to its daily imaging revisit
capability, the DMC will provide a service that will
greatly improve the response time to aid the management
and mitigation of disasters whenever, and wherever,
they occur. The processed images from the DMC satellites
will be distributed to relief teams on the ground by the
Reuters AlterNet Foundation — formed in 1997 to help
the work of relief professionals around the world.

The DMC has been made possible – and affordable — by
the highly capable microsatellites developed by Surrey
that provide high quality multispectral imaging at a
small fraction of the cost of a conventional satellite,
thus making the constellation and this humanitarian
service actually practicable.

The DMC partner organisations in the Consortium are:

  • Centre National des Techniques Spatiales (Algeria)
  • Ministry of Science & Technology (PR China)
  • National Space Research & Development Agency (Nigeria)
  • TUBITAK-ODTU (Turkey)
  • Mahanakorn University of Technology, Bangkok (Thailand)
  • National Centre for Science & Technology (Vietnam)
  • British National Space Centre (UK)
  • Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd(UK)

Four microsatellites for the DMC are being constructed at
SSTL in the UK. The first satellite of the constellation,
AlSAT-1 for Algeria, has been completed and is undergoing
final preparations at the launch site. Construction of
BILSAT-1 (Turkey); the UK-DMC microsatellite (BNSC-UK)
and NigeriaSat-1 are well underway at SSTL. The fifth
microsatellite (ThaiPaht-2) is being built at the
Mahanakorn University of Technology (MUT) in Bangkok,
Thailand by a team previously trained at Surrey and
follows MUT’s successful Know-How Transfer and Training
(KHTT) programme with SSTL and the launch of their first
microsatellite (Thai-Paht-1) in 1998. The satellites for
Algeria, Turkey and Nigeria are also being built under
a KHTT programme at Surrey.

The follow-on DMC-2 constellation, including higher
spatial resolution down to 2.5-metres GSD panchromatic
and 5-metres multispectral, is being prepared by SSTL
in collaboration with China, Thailand, UK & Vietnam —
with a first launch into the same orbit already
arranged for mid-2004. The first 2.5-metre resolution
microsatellite is already under construction at SSTL
whilst the Chinese and Vietnamese satellites are in
the final stages of contract negotiation with SSTL.