Surrey Satellite Technology
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Founded |  Guildford, United Kingdom (1985) |
| Headquarters | Guildford, Surrey |
Key people | Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, Group Executive Chairman Dr John Forrest, Deputy Chairman, Dr Matt Perkins, CEO. |
| Products | Satellites and related services |
| Revenue | £0.5m on £21m sales for FY 2006.[1] £30m turnover, £1.5m pre-tax profit were expected for FY 2006.[2] |
Number of employees | 240 |
| Website | www.sstl.co.uk |
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a spin-off company of the University of Surrey 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.
Recently SSTL has 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, onboard the UK-DMC satellite along with a network of payloads, takes advantage of this adoption of the Internet Protocol. The UK-DMC satellite also carries a payload investigating GPS reflectometry.
SSTL works with the British National Space Centre (BNSC) and takes on a number of tasks for the BNSC that would be done in-house by a traditional large government space agency. 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]
SSTL was awarded the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in 1998, and the Queen's Award for Enterprise in 2005. In 2006 SSTL won the Times Higher Education Supplement award for outstanding contribution to innovation and technology.[5]
Recent satellites and launches
- CFESat, the Cibola Flight Experiment, launched from Cape Canaveral on 8 March 2007.
- The first experimental and demonstration satellite for the Galileo positioning system, GIOVE-A, launched from Baikonur on 28 December 2005.
- TopSat and the latest DMC satellite, the Chinese Beijing-1, together from Plesetsk on 27 October 2005.
Upcoming satellite launches
UK-DMC-2 Customer: SSTL Group Mission objective: Increase capacity of Disaster Monitoring Constellation Satellite platform: SSTL-100
Deimos-1 Customer: Deimos Imaging SL (Spain) Mission objective: Earth observation to be launched into the Disaster Monitoring Constellation Satellite platform: SSTL-100
Satellites under construction
- SSTL will provide the platform and services for the Russian Kanopus-B remote-sensing satellite.[6]
- SSTL has contracted to build GIOVE-A2 for the European Space Agency.
- The sixth, Spanish, DMC satellite [7], the seventh DMC satellite for Nigeria, [8] and the eighth DMC satellite for the United Kingdom[9].
- SSTL will build the MoonLITE spacecraft if funding is secured[10]
References
- ^ SSTL Revenues and Profit Down Sharply, Peter de Selding, Space News, 15 February 2007.
- ^ How to build space satellites out of iPods, Malcolm Moore and Roger Highfield, Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2005.
- ^ EADS Astrium signs an agreement to acquire Surrey Satellite Technology Limited from the University of Surrey, press release, 7 April 2008.
- ^ Surrey Satellite Technology US opens for business, SSTL press release, 5 August 2008.
- ^ SSTL wins Times Higher award, 16 November 2006.
- ^ Russia places order with SSTL for satellite platform equipment, SSTL press release, 28 March 2007.
- ^ Deimos and Surrey Satellite Technology Contract for Spanish Imaging Mission, SSTL press release, 10 October 2006.
- ^ SSTL blog on NIGERIASAT-2, 6 November 2006.
- ^ DMCii to launch new higher-resolution satellite imaging service, SSTL press release, 20 March 2007.
- ^ Transcript: Interview with Stuart Eves at the UK Space Conference 2008, Space.co.uk, 29 March 2008.