UK Satellites Launched to Track Illegal Shipping Activity
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has confirmed the successful launch of two satellites, NovaSAR-1, a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite, and SSTL S1-4, a high resolution optical Earth Observation satellite. The two satellites were launched into a 580km sun-synchronous orbit on board the PSLV launch vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India on 16 September at UTC 16:38 by Antrix Corporation Limited, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation.Sir Martin Sweeting, Executive Chairman of SSTL, said “I am pleased to confirm that successful contact has been made with both satellites and they are in good health.
Galileo Navigation Satellite Project Update
Europe’s latest Galileo navigation satellite has arrived at the European Space Agency’s (ESA) technical centre in the Netherlands for testing, as the previous two satellites are prepared for shipping to French Guiana for launch this summer. ESA explains that the new satellite arrived at ESA’s Technical Centre, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, in the Netherlands, safely enclosed within an air-conditioned and environmentally controlled container from manufacturer OHB of Bremen, Germany. Meanwhile, the previous two Galileo satellites have completed their long test campaign and are being readied for shipping to Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, for launch together by Soyuz. Europe’s first four Galileo satellites are already in orbit, the minimum number needed for achieving a position fix.
Satellite Radar
With the ocean moving more than 90% of world commerce, keeping it secure is of vital importance – yet our ability to monitor activity at sea is somewhat more challenging than on land given the vastness of the oceans. Also many maritime monitoring systems rely on ships to ‘opt-in’, that can leave potentially risky blind spots in our picture of maritime traffic. This article, derived from a presentation that David Beard of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory gave at the recent DMC and NovaSAR International Conference…
Advances in Sea-State Forecasting
Marine operations such as offshore oil and gas operations, renewable energy projects and shipping depend on high quality information on sea-state (wave height, period, direction, steepness) for economic and safety decision making. The information currently available is based on atmospheric/ocean models and lacks sufficient temporal and spatial resolution. “Wave conditions are always changing and can vary tremendously over a period of a few hours”, said Chelsea’s Technical Manager, Paul Bolton.
