Surrey Satellite Technology

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd
Subsidiary
Industry Aerospace
Founded Guildford, Surrey, UK (1985)
Headquarters Guildford, Surrey
Key people

Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, Group Executive Chairman

Patrick Wood, CEO from 1 April 2015
Products Satellites and related services
Revenue £2.6m on £92m sales for FY 2011.[1] £30m turnover, £1.5m pre-tax profit were expected for FY 2006.[2]
Number of employees
 450
Website www.sstl.co.uk

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a spin-off company of the University of Surrey, now majority-owned by Airbus Defence and Space, that builds and operates small satellites. Its satellites began as amateur radio satellites known by the UoSAT (University of Surrey SATELLITE) name or by an OSCAR (Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) designation. SSTL cooperates with the University's Surrey Space Centre, which does research into satellite and space topics.

The University sold a 10% share of SSTL to SpaceX in January 2005. It then agreed to sell its majority share (roughly 80% of the capital) to EADS Astrium in April 2008.[3] In August 2008 SSTL opened a US subsidiary[4] which it closed in 2017.[5]

SSTL was awarded the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in 1998, and the Queen's Awards for Enterprise in 2005. In 2006 SSTL won the Times Higher Education Supplement award for outstanding contribution to innovation and technology.[6] In 2009 SSTL ranked 89 out of the 997 companies that took part in the Sunday Times Top 100 companies to work for.[7]

History

Surrey Satellite was founded in Guildford, Surrey, UK in 1985.

In 2002, SSTL moved into remote sensing services with the launch of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and an associated child company, DMC International Imaging. SSTL also adopted the Internet Protocol for the DMC satellites it builds and operates, migrating from use of the AX.25 protocol popular in amateur radio. The CLEO Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit, on board the UK-DMC satellite along with a network of payloads, takes advantage of this adoption of the Internet Protocol. SSTL has also developed a new Geostationary Minisatellite Platform-Transfer orbit variant (GMP-T) aimed at the telecommunications market under the brand name SSTL-900. In 2010 and 2012 SSTL was awarded contracts to supply 22 navigation payloads[8] for Europe's Galileo space navigation system.

In 2008, Surrey formed a US susidiary, Surrey Satellite Technology-US, in Englewood, Colorado to focus on the US smallsat market. At the time, plans were that the office could grow to over 200 people. In June 2017, SSTL announced they would close the Colorado satellite manufacturing facility in the US and would consolidate all manufacturing back into the UK.[4][5]

Satellites and launches

Customer: MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA)
Mission objective: To provide a satellite-based Resident Space Object (RSO) observing service that will provide accurate tracking data on deep space orbiting objects. Sapphire is the Canadian Department of National Defence's first dedicated operational military satellite. Its space-based electro-optical sensor will track man-made space objects in Earth orbits between 6000 and 40,000 km as part of Canada's continued support of Space Situational Awareness and the U.S. Space Surveillance Network by updating the U.S. Satellite Catalogue that is used by both NORAD and Canada.[10]
Satellite platform: SSTL-150

Satellites under construction

NovaSAR - Part funded by UK Government, SAR Payload supplied by Airbus Defence &Space

Mission Objective: S-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar

Eutelsat Quantum[12] small geostationary platform

Customer: Airbus Defence and Space

KazSTSat[13]

Customer: Ghalam LLP (Kazakhstan)

Mission: Medium Resolution Earth Observation and space development training

VESTA[14]

Customer: Honeywell

Mission: a technology demonstration mission that will test a new two-way VHF Data Exchange System (VDES) payload for the exactEarth advanced maritime satellite constellation.

Telesat LEO prototype[15]

Customer: Telesat

Mission: small low earth orbit (LEO) prototype satellite as part of a test and validation phase for an advanced, global LEO satellite constellation.

RemoveDEBRIS

Customer: University of Surrey

Mission: Active Debris Removal (ADR) technology demonstrations (e.g. capture, deorbiting) representative of an operational scenario during a low-cost mission using novel key technologies for ADR.[16]

EarthCARE [17]

Customer: Astrium GmbH (now Airbus Defence and Space)
Mission objective: As part of the Earth Observation Envelope Programme (EOEP) led by ESA to cover primary research objectives, the EarthCARE mission will be the third Earth Explorer Core Mission. The mission will be implemented in collaboration with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency who will provide one of the core instruments. The EarthCARE mission has been specifically defined with the basic objective of improving the understanding of cloud-aerosol-radiation interactions so as to include them correctly and reliably in climate and numerical weather prediction models. EarthCARE will meet these objectives by measuring simultaneously the vertical structure and horizontal distribution of cloud and aerosol fields together with outgoing radiation over all climate zones. SSTL's role in this mission is to provide a Multi Spectral Imager (MSI) Instrument by development, manufacturing, testing and operations support during Phase B/C/D/E1.[18]

COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7[19]

Customer: National Space Organization (Taiwan)
Mission objective: Atmospheric limb sounding by GNSS radio occultation, ionospheric research; follow-on mission to COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3.

Platforms

SSTL-100
SSTL 100 was used in Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). The SSTL-100 provides the core capability to carry a wide range of payloads. Active variants include SSTL-100i 32 (1st generation DMC) and SSTL-100i 22 (2nd generation DMC).
Surrey is developing a satellite bus "optimized to the design of LauncherOne", under development by Virgin Galactic[20]
SSTL-150
An SSTL-100 platform with substantially improved payload capacity, improved propulsion and added high attitude agility. Active variants include SSTL-150i 4 Agile (Beijing-1),SSTL-150i 2.5 Agile and SSTL-150 RapidEye.
Model of a SSTL-300 satellite

SSTL-300

SSTL 300 was designed for highly demanding applications. Very flexible configuration, capable of supporting a large spectrum of implementations, payloads and structural configurations. Current variants are optimised for optical EO (from 2.5m to sub 1m resolutions), SAR and science EO payloads. Active variants include SSTL-300i 2.5 Agile, SSTL-300i 1.0 Agile, SSTL-300i UHR, SSTL-300L and SSTL-300r.

GMP-T[21]

Low cost transfer variant geostationary satellite platform.

GMP-A[22]

Adaptor upper stage geostationary satellite platform

GMP-E[23]

Externally load bearing structure, geostationary satellite platform

See also

References

  1. ↑ SSTL Revenues and Profit Down Sharply, Peter de Selding, Space News, 15 February 2007.
  2. ↑ How to build space satellites out of iPods, Malcolm Moore and Roger Highfield, Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2005.
  3. ↑ EADS Astrium signs an agreement to acquire Surrey Satellite Technology Limited from the University of Surrey, press release, 7 April 2008.
  4. 1 2 Surrey Satellite Technology US opens for business, SSTL press release, 5 August 2008.
  5. 1 2 http://spacenews.com/sstl-closing-us-factory-centralizing-manufacturing-back-in-uk/
  6. ↑ SSTL wins Times Higher award, 16 November 2006.
  7. ↑ SSTL earn Sunday Times Award, SSTL space blog, 17 MArch 2009.
  8. ↑ "BBC News online".
  9. ↑ "Lomonosov mission page from SSTL". Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  10. ↑ SSTL's 40th satellite platform launch: Sapphire reaches orbit, SpaceDaily.com, 26 February 2013
  11. ↑ "STRaND-1 smartphone nanosatellite". Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  12. ↑ "Space News".
  13. ↑ "SSTL website".
  14. ↑ "Satellite Today".
  15. ↑ "Telesat website".
  16. ↑ "The Guardian".
  17. ↑ "EarthCARE" (PDF). Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  18. ↑ http://www.sstl.co.uk/Missions/Current_Projects
  19. ↑ "FORMOSAT-7 Mission Page from SSTL". Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  20. ↑ "Virgin Galactic relaunches its smallsat launch business". NewSpace Journal. 2012-07-12. Retrieved 2012-08-25.
  21. ↑ "SSTL website".
  22. ↑ "SSTL website".
  23. ↑ "SSTL website".

Coordinates: 51°14′31″N 0°37′01″W / 51.24194°N 0.61694°W / 51.24194; -0.61694

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