[SatNews] Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has announced the successful launch of KazEOSat-2, a medium resolution Earth observation satellite for the Republic of Kazakhstan, at UTC 19:11:1—the spacecraft was launched into a 630km sun-synchronous orbit on board a DNEPR rocket from Yasny in Russia.

The KazEOSat-2 satellite. Photo is courtesy of SSTL.

Following confirmation of separation from the launch vehicle, the ground station at the newly built satellite operations center in Kazakhstan’s capital city, Astana, established contact with the satellite on its first pass and commissioning of the platform is now underway, undertaken by a joint team of engineers from SSTL and Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary.

KazEOSat-2 (formerly known as KazMRES) has a mass of 180kg and is based on the SSTL-150 platform. The satellite will deliver 77km swath, multi-spectral images with a resolution of 6.5 meters for agricultural and resource monitoring, disaster management and land use mapping. The spacecraft is the medium-resolution element of a civil space remote sensing system that also includes the high-resolution satellite, KazEOSat-1, built by Airbus Defence and Space. The contract with SSTL also included a license agreement for non-commercial reproduction of the SSTL-150 platform in Kazakhstan.

Sir Martin Sweeting, Executive Chairman of SSTL, said, “We congratulate the Kazakh government on the successful launch of KazEOSat-2 and the advancement of their civil space program. We have enjoyed working with the Kazakh engineers who took part in a space development and training program with us during the build of their spacecraft, and we are very much looking forward to welcoming a new team of engineers from Kazakhstan to the UK next month, who will collaborate with us on the design and build of their next mission, KazSTSat.“

In a continuation of the collaboration between the two organisations, a team from SSTL has traveled to the satellite operations center in Astana to perform initial in-orbit operations alongside Kazakh engineers. Once platform commissioning in Astana is complete, SSTL and Kazakh engineers will commission and calibrate the imaging payload from SSTL’s Mission Control operations center in Guildford.

Headquartered in Guildford, UK, SSTL is part of the Airbus Group.

The SSTL infosite is located at http://www.sstl.co.uk/