[SatNEws] Small satellite pioneer Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has been awarded a grant to commence the design phase of a national technology demonstration satellite called TechDemoSat-1.

The UK’s Technology Strategy Board and the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) have together provided a grant of 770,000 pounds to fund the core mission design elements. SSTL, UK industry and UK academia will fund the novel payload technologies and the grant will enable the final payload selection process to be completed. Following a successful design phase, a further grant of 2,730,000 pounds will be released and then the program will transition into the build and test phase. UK organizations currently experience huge cost barriers and find it very time consuming to obtain a first flight demonstration for new equipment and technologies in space. The Technology Strategy Board and SEEDA aim to address this issue by providing an ‘in orbit test bed’ for UK technology. The rapid flight qualification model characterized by the TechDemoSat-1 program has been proven to yield excellent return on investment for “UK plc”, with previous programs such as the UK’s MOSAIC initiative of 2001 leading to export some 20 times greater than the original investment .

TechDemoSat-1 will be the first collaborative UK satellite launched since the establishment of the UK Space Agency and will demonstrate the advanced capabilities of state-of-the-art small satellite technology for scientific and commercial applications. It will also be among the first missions to make use of the ground station facilities that are currently under construction at the UK’s new International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) at Harwell, Oxfordshire. From the outset, the mission concept has been industry-led and is the culmination of several leading British space companies’ and universities’ efforts to demonstrate the UK’s technical lead in space innovation. As the project leader, SSTL will cooperate with the research and commercial partners providing the payloads in building, testing and operating the satellite.