The show's new emphasis on the space industry in the form of the Space Pavilion is being matched by a drive from British technology company QinetiQ (Hall 1, A19) to show off its wide range of satellite and related activities.
They include the TopSat microsatellite project, being presented in the Space Pavilion, tiny probes that can be dropped into the Venetian atmosphere, support for high-profile European Space Agency missions - and technology to monitor potentially life-threatening near-Earth objects of the kind dramatised in the film Deep Impact.
Being developed by a QinetiQ-led consortium for a first launch next year, the TopSat system is intended to produce high-resolution imagery at the best performance-to-cost ratio in the world and give nations with limited resources complete control over their satellite imaging requirements.
Optical
The TopSat payload is an advanced optical camera able to capture 15km x 15km (9mile x 9mile) area of the Earth with a panchromatic resolution of 2.5m (8ft) and a multispectral (colour) resolution of 5m. Imagery will be delivered in near-real time from low Earth orbit direct to users via a mobile ground station.
The camera structure incorporates a novel monocoque structure made of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic and incorporating QinetiQ's CrenLok, an innovative joining technique for sandwich panels that is significantly stronger than traditional methods.
Far beyond Earth orbit, in 10 years swarms of tiny probes may be descending to the surface of Venus, sampling the planet's dense atmosphere as they go. QinetiQ has been awarded an ESA contract to develop a prototype system to track the apple-sized probes, which could fly in a decade's time as a follow-up to next year's Venus Express mission.
The proposed spacecraft would deploy into the atmosphere a balloon carrying up to 100 of the apple-sized probes. Packed with tiny instruments, they would be dropped in batches to fall through the acid-laden clouds and record a range of data. The information would then be transmitted back to the balloon for onward transmission to Earth.
Next year's ESA Gravity Field and Steady State Ocean Circulation (GOCE) mission and the European agency's Bepi Colombo flight to Mercury early next decade will feature ion engines developed by QinetiQ. The company's T6 ion engine has been chosen for Bepi Colombo and the smaller T5 thruster for GOCE, a unique mission to map the Earth's gravitational field with unprecedented resolution and accuracy.
BRENDAN GALLAGHER
Source: Flight Daily News
