Surrey Satellite Technology's (SSTL) Tsinghua-1 and SNAP-1 satellites were launched on 28 June on board a Cosmos 3M booster from Plesesk as piggyback payloads on a flight of a Nadezhda spacecraft.
The Tsinghua-1 microsatellite is a collaboration between SSTL and China's Tsinghua University in Beijing, while SNAP is the UK company's first nanosatellite.
Tsinghua-1 will form the first demonstrator for the Disaster Monitoring Constellation and carries multi-spectral Earth imaging cameras providing 39m (130ft) nadir ground resolution in three spectral bands. The Disaster Monitoring Constellation, to be launched in early 2002 and led by SSTL, will comprise five microsatellites to provide daily worldwide high-resolution imaging for the monitoring of natural and man-made disasters.
Tsinghua-1 will also carry out research in low Earth orbit using digital store-and-forward communications, a digital signal processing experiment, a Surrey-built GPS space receiver, and a new three-axis microsatellite attitude control experiment.
SNAP-1, which weighs just 6.5kg (14lb), carries SSTL-developed advanced micro-miniature GPS navigation, camera onboard computing, propulsion and attitude control technologies. SNAP-1's primary payload is a machine vision system (MVS) which will enable the inspection of other spacecraft in orbit.
The MVS consists of three ultra-miniature wide-angle video cameras and a narrow-angle video camera, together with sophisticated image processing electronics.
Using its miniature propulsion, navigation and inter-satellite datalink systems, SNAP-1 will attempt to rendezvous in orbit with its sister spacecraft Tsinghua-1 to demonstrate satellite formation flying for the first time, leading the way to the development of micro/nanosatellite constellations.
Meanwhile, SSTL has won a $60,000 study contract from NASA to investigate the potential for its Minisat 400 series spacecraft to operate with communications service providers using internet protocols (IP).
Future space communications will operate to worldwide standards rather than operating proprietary systems. SSTL has been using its orbiting UoSat 12 demonstration minisatellite as a testbed for IP research.
Source: Flight International
