Sunday, January 09, 2011

Brits In Spaaace! Brown Era Edition

Did you know the UK briefly had an independent imagery satellite between 2005-2009? You do now, and so do I thanks to Think Defence. Sample pix are here.

The satellite was designed to return its data directly to a mobile ground station immediately after collecting an image, allowing far more timely delivery of the information which it collects than standard satellites. The system was specifically designed to meet operational timescales, whether for disaster relief, news-gathering, or other applications where speed of response is vital....TopSat weighs just 120 kg, but carries an optical camera capable of delivering panchromatic images with a spatial resolution at nadir of 2.8 metres covering a 17x17 km area, and simultaneous three-band multi-spectral images, (red, green, blue), with a resolution of 5.6 metres. This is thought to represent the best resolution per mass of any satellite launched to date. This camera is integrated with an agile micro-satellite platform to permit pitch compensation manoeuvres, allowing imaging of low illumination scenes.


It would fit on one of these among other things.

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