Heritage Missions
Surrey is proud to have the world's most extensive track record of small satellite missions, spanning more than 25 years.
SST-US and its parent SSTL have the facilities, expertise, and teams to work on multiple missions and projects.
Kanopus (Vulcan) & Kanopus (BKA) & Lomonosov
Customer: NPP VNIIEM (Russia)
3 sets of satellite avionics to be delivered to customer for integration of non SSTL equipment.
KANOPUS - Vulcan
A mission for Russia to record abnormal phenomena to study the possibility of earthquake prediction and, in addition to this, monitoring agriculture, water and coastal resources.
KANOPUS - BKA
A mission for Belarus for monitoring development of large building projects including gas and oil pipelines, railways, hydropower stations as well as geological investigation and environmental monitoring.
Lomonosov
A mission for Russia to study transient phenomena in the Earth's upper atmosphere, cosmic rays and gamma ray bursts
Launch: 2012
GMP (Geostationary Minisatellite Platform)
Customer: European Space Agency & British National Space Centre
Mission objective: Geostationary communications satellite platform baselined for a variety of missions including C, Ku, X-band
Satellite platform: SSTL GMP-T
Find out more about Surrey's GMP-T GEO Platform
SAPPHIRE
Customer: MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA)
Mission objective: To provide a satellite-based Resident Space Object (RSO) observing service that will provide accurate tracking data on deep space orbiting objects. SAPPHIRE will feature a space-based data collection platform for continuous surveillance of manmade objects in medium to high Earth orbits (6,000 to 40,000 km). The data collected will be processed by a ground-based system and the results will be used to update the U.S. Satellite Catalogue that is used by both NORAD and Canada to provide space situational awareness.
Satellite platform: SSTL-150
ADS-1B
Customer: COM DEV
Mission objective: ADS-1B will form part of the COM DEV AIS constellation used by ships and traffic to, for example, monitor ship movements through busy shipping channels and harbours and to provide information on global shipping movements
Satellite platform: SSTL-100
Launch: 2012
Payloads for Europe's satellite-supported navigation system
Customer: OHB System AG
SSTL has been selected by ESA to supply 14 navigation payloads for the deployment phase of Europe's satellite-supported navigation system. Under the contract, SSTL will be responsible for the design, manufacture and test of these navigation payloads using equipment procured mainly from European suppliers. SSTL will also manufacture some of the electronics to interface with the satellite bus built by OHB-System and the navigation payload.
Find out more
EarthCARE
Customer: Astrium GmbH
Mission objective: As part of the Earth Observation Envelope Programme (EOEP) led by ESA to cover primary research objectives, the EarthCARE mission will be the third Earth Explorer Core Mission. The mission will be implemented in collaboration with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency who will provide one of the core instruments. The EarthCARE mission has been specifically defined with the basic objective of improving the understanding of cloud-aerosol-radiation interactions so as to include them correctly and reliably in climate and numerical weather prediction models. EarthCARE will meet these objectives by measuring simultaneously the vertical structure and horizontal distribution of cloud and aerosol fields together with outgoing radiation over all climate zones. SSTL's role in this mission is to provide a Multi Spectral Imager (MSI) Instrument by development, manufacturing, testing and operations support during Phase B/C/D/E1.
Kazakhstan
Customer: KGS
Mission objective: Earth observation for monitoring natural resources and agriculture and providing mapping data, and provision of a training programme.
Satellite platform: SSTL 150-plus
Launch: 2013
Find out more from the Kazakhstan contract press release
TechDemoSat-1
Customer: SSTL supported by a grant from the Technology 
Steering Board (TSB) and the South East England
Development Agency (SEEDA)
Mission objective: In orbit test bed for UK technology
Find out more about TechDemoSat-1
Sentinel 5-P SWIR Spectrometer
Customer: ESA/Dutch Space
Mission objective: The Sentinel 5 Precursor mission will provide a source of assurate and detailed air quality and climate change change date. The SWIR spectrometer will be used to measure carbon monoxide and methane in the atmosphere.
Find out more from the S5P SWIR contract press release
STRaND Smartphone Nanosatellite
Joint project between SSTL and The Surrey Space Centre at The University of Surrey
Mission objective: To demonstrate that the advanced capabilities of a satellite can be controlled using the operating system of a smartphone.
Find out more
DMC3
Customer: DMCii
Mission objective: To
provide 3 SSTL-300S1 satellite platforms to DMCii, a new smallsat design which provides unparalleled 1 metre high resolution imagery with high speed downlink and 45 degree off-pointing. The three satellites will form a new constellation, DMC3, with daily revisit times which is crucial for change detection, disaster monitoring and response planning, and essential for acquiring cloud-free imagery. Beijing-based company, 21AT, will lease 100% of the imaging capacity of the three satellites.
Launch: 2014
Find out more from the DMC3 press release
European Student Mission to the Moon (ESMO)
Customer: ESA
Mission objective: SSTL is managing ESA's ESMO programme which will place a spacecraft for lunar orbit to map the lunar surface, acquire images and other scientific data. The project kicked-off in October 2009 with each spacecraft subsystem, payload and ground segment being designed, built and operated by groups of students from 19 universities based in ESA Member states and Co-operating States.
Launch: 2014.
Find out more about ESMO on ESA's website.