AKA: SSTL. Location: Guildford.
University of Surrey research microsatellite. Radio science; also carried amateur radio package. Communication and geophysics research satellite. Launch time 1127 GMT. Also registered by the United States in ST/SG/SER.E/59, with category D and orbital parameters 95.3 min, 531 x 533 km x 97.5 deg. UoSAT-OSCAR 9 was launched piggyback with Solar Mesosphere Explorer satellite. Weight 52 kg. Box shaped 740 x 420 x 420 mm. Deployable gravity gradient boom. Firsts: First on-board computer (IHU - Integrated Housekeeping Unit) for battery and attitude management, remote control, and experiments. Built by the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, UO-9 was UoSAT's first experimental satellite. It was a scientific and educational low-Earth orbit satellite containing many experiments and beacons but no amateur transponders. UO-9 was fully operational until it re-entered October 13, 1989 from a decaying orbit after nine years of service.
University of Surrey experimental microsatellite. Built in only 6 months, UoSAT-2 carried the first modern digital store and forward (S&F) communications payload and a prototype CCD camera. Also performed magnetospheric studies. Launch time 1759 GMT. Still operational in 2000.
University of Surrey experimental satellite. The first of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd's modular microsatellites. Launched on the Ariane ASAP; carried an operational store and forward communications payload with extensive radiation monitoring experiments for SatelLife and Data Trax Inc (USA). Still operational in 2000. Owner/operator University of Surrey, Dept of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5XH.
Technology demonstration mission carrying transponder, solar cell, CCD camera technology experiments. Customer: University of Surrey/European Space Agency. Launched alongside UoSAT-3, the microsatellite operated perfectly for 2 days before a failure occured in the downlink. Owner/operator University of Surrey, Dept of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5XH. Box shaped 350 x 350 x 650 mm. Four solar panels and 6 m gravity gradient boom.
An industrial research microsatellite built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) for Matra and CNES to carry out 'Little LEO' communications service experiments. Still operational in 2000. S80/T was designed to investigate the technical feasibility of using a constellation of small satellites placed in near-Earth orbit to provide global communications and position location using only hand-held terminals. S80/T was the first fully commercial application of the SSTL multi-mission, modular microsatellite platform developed at the University of Surrey. The same basic platform was also used for the Korean KITSAT-A microsatellite, which accompanied S80/T into orbit on the same launch. The S80/T mission was completed, from concept to launch, within one year and SSTL delivered the platform, associated groundstation equipment and would be providing operations support during the mission within a contract of less than £1M.
Customer: SateLife. Store and forward communications satellite operating in the SatelLife 'HealthNet' LEO satellite communications network for remote regions. Still operational as of 2000.
Healthsat - II joined UoSAT-3/HealthSat-I as the second microsatellite in the HealthNet global communications system of SatelLife, a U.S. not-for-profit organisation. HealthNet, which was licensed in eighteen countries in Africa and Latin America, was providing desperately needed low cost 'last mile' communication links between medical institutions and health programmes in the developing world.
The HealthSat-II mission was completed, from concept to launch, within one year. SSTL were responsible for all the programmatic aspects of the mission including procuring the launch slot on the Ariane ASAP and arranging suitable insurance for the launch and early commissioning phase - all within a total contract price of £1M. Additional Details: here....
Caracterisation de l'Environnement Radioelectrique par un Instrument Spatiale Embarque; examined Earth RF environment. Customer: Alcatel Espace/DME. French government research payload incorporated into an advance microsatellite platform. Still operational as of 2000.
Customer: Thailand (Thai Microsatellite Company and MUT). Thailand's first microsatellite built through a technology transfer programme with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. Carried store and forward and Earth observation payloads. Still operational as of 2000. Additional Details: here....
First launch of Russia's Dnepr launch vehicle, a converted R-36M2 ICBM. The Dnepr was launched from a silo. The third stage maneuvring bus (used on the ICBM for dispensing multiple warheads) placed UoSAT-12 into a 638 km x 652 km x 64.6 deg orbit. The third stage separated from the payload at 05:13 GMT and then made a burn into a 599 km x 1403 km x 64.6 deg orbit. UoSAT-12 was the first test of the Minibus platform, at 325 kg a larger spacecraft than earlier 50 kg Surrey UoSATs. It carried a mobile radio experiment (MERLION), a GPS receiver, and imaging cameras.
Tsinghua University of Beijing satellite equipped with an imager, communications payload, and momentum wheels for 3-axis stabilisation. The 50 kg, 0.69 x 0.36 x 0.36m box-shaped satellite used a standard Surrey SSTL microsat bus.Tsinghua-1 was the first demonstrator for the planned Disaster Monitoring Constellation and carried a multi-spectral Earth imaging camera providing 39-metre nadir ground resolution in 3 spectral bands. The satellite also carried out research in low Earth orbit using digital store-and-forward communications, a digital signal processing (DSP) experiment, a Surrey-built GPS space receiver and a new 3-axis microsat attitude control experiment. Tsinghua-1 used the SGR-10, with 12 channels and equipped with two receive antennas, to investigate the use of GPS signals in microsat on-board attitude and orbit determination. In October 2000 Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) released a picture of Tsinghua-1 taken in orbit by the SNAP-1 6.5 kg nanosatellite.
The SNAP-1 Surrey Nanosatellite Applications Platform was a 6 kg satellite with imager and propulsion. It was to test rendezvous techniques by formation flying with the Tsinghua satellite placed in orbit on the same launch. In October 2000 Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) released a picture of Tsinghua-1 taken in orbit by the SNAP-1 6.5 kg nanosatellite.
Launch delayed from August 25/26. Customer: Astonautic Technology (M) SDN. BHD. Malaysia's first microsatellite built through a technology transfer programme with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd Carried multi-spectral Earth imaging CCD cameras, meteorological Earth imaging CCD camera, digital store and forward communications, cosmic-ray energy deposition experiment (CEDEX)
STP P97-1 Picosat was built by Surrey Satellite for the USAF using a Uosat-type bus. The 68 kg satellite was to test electronic components/systems in space conditions. It carried four test payloads: Polymer Battery Experiment (PBEX), Ionospheric Occultation Experiment (IOX), Coherent Electromagnetic Radio Tomagraphy (CERTO) and an ultra-quiet platform (OPPEX). Called Picosat 9 by some Agencies although not related to other satellites in that series.
Delayed from September 12, October 29. ALSAT 1 was an Algerian imaging minisatellite. The 90-kg satellite was the first part of an international Disaster Monitoring System (DMS) for alerting natural/man-made disasters. ALSAT was built by Surrey Satellite for the CNTS (Centre National des Techniques Spatiales) in Algiers. It carriee a 32-m resolution 3-band imager, a 100 mN resistojet thruster for small orbit corrections, and a GPS receiver. The SSTL Microsat-100 class satellite was a 0.60m cube with a 6m gravity gradient boom. As well as gravity gradient stabilization, it used a momentum wheel to improve stability for imaging.
Three disaster monitoring DMC satellites (BILSAT-1, NigeriaSat-1 and UK-DMC) were lofted in a single Kosmos launch. They joined the first DMC satellite, AlSAT-1, which was launched into a 686 km sun-synchronous low Earth orbit in November 2002, to provide a worldwide daily imaging capability. The spacecraft were 3-axis stabilised nadir-pointing. The imaging payload was a 32-metre resolution GSD multispectral wide-swath Earth imaging cameras and a12-metre GSD panchromatic camera. The Kosmos rocket delivered the satellites into orbit with a precision about an order of magnitude better than the maximum allowable - placing the satellites into orbit with a semi-major axis accurate to within 700 metres and just 300 metres from that of AlSAT-1. Bilsat 1 was built for TUBITAK-ODTU-BILTEN, the Information Technology and Electronics Research Institute of the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
Beijing-1 carried a 31-cm focal-length cartographic telescope with a resolution of 4 meters. It was to be part of the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation. Operated by Tsinghua University for Beijing Landview Mapping Information Technology Ltd.
Delayed from September, October, December 26. Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element, a prototype for the Galileo European navigation satellite network. Giove carried carried two rubidium atomic clocks and a large L-band phased array antenna. Retired in 2012 as the production models went on-line.
The Cibola Flight Experiment satellites carried eight new technologies for space flight validation, including a new power supply, inflatable antennas, deployable booms, a new type of launch-vehicle separation system, and a high-density pack of AA lithium-ion batteries. Cibola's on-board field programmable gate array supercomputer processed data onboard, then beamed only the results rather than the raw data to the ground. The Cibola also had a science mission: the study of lightning, ionospheric disturbances, and other sources of radio frequency (RF) atmospheric noise.
RapidEye AG of Brandenberg paid for launch of a constellation of five environmental monitoring satellites in a single launch, each with a mass of 152 kg including 12 kg of propellant. The satellites had an optical resolution of 6 meters, and were designed to provide on-demand images for agricultural storm damage assessment and support of emergency services.