Photo on right: From left to right show Clyde Space CEO Craig Clark, Consul General Krutikov, Ms Wilson and Mr Salmond with the satellite.
Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, took a close-up view of Scotland’s first satellite today as the Glasgow-based team behind the mission announced plans to open a base in the United States.
Clyde Space, which designed and built the UKube-1 nanosatellite, is running final tests at the company’s headquarters in the West of Scotland Science Park ahead of its deployment next month to Kazakhstan, where it will be launched in a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket later this year.
Employing more than 20 highly-skilled full-time staff, Clyde Space is a leading producer of small satellite, nanosatellite and ‘CubeSat’ systems—fully-functional satellites that ‘piggy-back’ on other launches to minimize costs and boost the commercial availability of space research. The company develops and delivers products to commercial aerospace, defense companies and academic teams around the world and now plans to open a base next year in the United States, which already accounts for almost a third of its current orders.
Mr. Salmond said: “From James Clerk Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory that paved the way for deep-space telescopes, to Professor Higgs work at the University of Edinburgh into the building blocks of all matter, Scottish science has helped humankind better understand our universe. By pioneering a cost-effective way of supporting more space research, the Clyde Space team is building on a strong heritage of engineering, ingenuity and innovation. I’m delighted that, through Scottish Enterprise, we’ve been able to support this exciting company as it has built the business globally, to a point, now, where it is planning a new base in the US.
“It is great to see up close Scotland’s first space satellite representing another successful Scottish export drive, but not as we know it. After years of hard work Craig and his stellar team have shown they have the right stuff to achieve a space mission and they’re ready to make it so. I’m delighted that the mission not only supports several research projects but will engage young people online and can help inspire the next generation of space scientists and engineers. We cannot change the laws of physics but it’s important that we continue to study and understand them better. It’s one small satellite for Clyde and a giant leap for their extraterrestrial export business and a new hope for space science in Scotland!”
The UKube-1 is a UK Space Agency mission that will include experiments to use Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to measure space weather and to test how cosmic radiation could improve the security of communications satellites. The satellite will also carry a payload made up of five experiments that students across the UK and the public can interact with and an outreach program for school pupils.