Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and Ghalam LLP (Kazakhstan) have agreed that SSTL’s new X50 platform design will deliver KazSTSAT, a small satellite mission announced under a contract signed last year.
KazSTSAT will be based on the SSTL-X50 Earthmapper variant and will carry an SSTL SLIM-6 imager, providing 22m resolution multispectral imagery with a swath width of more than 600km for global wide-area imaging. The new SSTL-X50 Earthmapper variant combines a large volume of data storage, enhanced power generation capacity and high downlink availability to continuously image the sunlit land mass making it particularly suited to applications requiring a high temporal revisit rate, such as agricultural and flood monitoring, water quality assessment, forest monitoring and disaster management.
Luis Gomes, SSTL’s Director of Earth Observation and Science, commented: “It is very gratifying that less than 3 months after the public introduction of the X50 Earthmapper, one of our longstanding customers has decided to base its new satellite on this platform. It demonstrates the appeal of our new family of advanced platforms which have been designed using our unrivalled experience and the know-how unique to SSTL, combined with cutting-edge technology, manufacturing and testing processes.”
Under a joint development programme 14 Kazakh engineers will work alongside SSTL engineers to design and build the KazSTSAT spacecraft. In addition to the SLIM-6 imager, KazSTSAT will fly a number of Ghalam LLP developed payloads, and will join the Disaster Monitoring Constellation, which provides daily images for applications including global disaster monitoring. Environmental testing will take place at a new Ghalam LLP test facility being established in Astana, Kazakhstan.
SSTL has developed the new X50 satellite platform to provide a smaller, lighter, flexible spacecraft with enhanced systems capabilities and quality. With a mass of 50kg, the compact, highly integrated design baselines flight-proven heritage with next-generation avionics to incorporate fully dual redundant subsystems and scaled core platform services such as power, structure, data processing, communications and high-precision attitude control.
The new platform design allows SSTL to take advantage of automated batch avionics manufacturing and test processes, and aids rapid assembly and integration of the spacecraft, bringing customers the benefit of shorter order to orbit timescales and reduced fixed-price costs.
About SSTL
Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) is the world’s leading small satellite company, delivering operational space missions for a range of applications including Earth observation, science and communications. The Company designs, manufactures and operates high performance satellites and ground systems for a fraction of the price normally associated with space missions, with 600 staff working on turnkey satellite platforms, space-proven satellite subsystems and optical instruments.
Since 1981 SSTL has built and launched 41 satellites for 16 countries – as well as providing training and development programmes, consultancy services, and mission studies for ESA, NASA , international governments and commercial customers, with its innovative approach that is changing the economics of space.
In 2006 SSTL formed a UK subsidiary company, DMCii, to exploit the applications of its small Earth Observation satellites and in 2008 the Company set up a US subsidiary, Surrey Satellite Technology US LLC (SST-US) with facilities in Denver, Colorado to address the United States market and its customers for the provision of small satellite solutions, applications and services. www.sst-us.com
Headquartered in Guildford, UK, SSTL is owned by Astrium BV.
www.sstl.co.uk
