Artist’s rendition of a satellite – mechanik/123RF Stock Photo
The Earth Observation (EO) sector has been active this week with new contracts, agreements, and satellite launches.
TRUTHS
This week, two contracts for the next phase of the European Space Agency’s Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial- and Helio-Studies mission, known as TRUTHS, were awarded to UK companies Airbus and Teledyne e2V.
TRUTHS will measure ocean and land surfaces alongside the incoming solar radiation and outgoing reflected radiation, acting as both a calibration source for other satellite sensors and making benchmark measurements. As a result of these observations, TRUTHS aims to support the modelling of the climate, carbon cycle, land use change, agriculture and pollution to help scientists better understand what is happening around climate change.
The satellite will have two main instruments:
- Cryogenic Solar Absolute Radiometer
- Hyperspectral Imaging Spectrometer.
The £95 million contract for Airbus will go towards satellite design and development, while Teledyne e2v will receive £9 million to work on the Hyperspectral Imaging Spectrometer.
The satellite is being built under the ESA Earth Watch programme on behalf of the UK and five other ESA members: Switzerland, Czechia, Spain, Greece, and Romania, and is due to be launched in 2030.
Copernicus & Horizon
The UK’s association to the Horizon and Copernicus programmes was confirmed on Monday, when the UK Government’s Science and Technology Secretary of State Michelle Donelan visited Brussels to meet with European Research and Innovation Commissioner Iliana Ivanova. This formalises the agreement reached in September for the UK to rejoin these programmes, access to which was lost due to Brexit.
The new agreement means that the UK will formally be part of the programme from 1st January 2024, and will start making financial contributions to the programmes at this point.
This means that scientists can now participate in the 2024 Horizon work programme, the calls for which are already open, and UK companies can bid for future Copernicus contracts. However, it will be interesting to see whether the UK will be as successful as it previously was in getting funding – something that seems to have been implicitly acknowledged by the new agreement. The UK will have a new automatic clawback, meaning the UK will be compensated should UK scientists receive significantly less money than the UK puts into the programme.
Earth Observation Satellite Launches
On Monday this week, a launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China took three satellites into orbit on a Long March 2C rocket. The launch successfully put the Egyptian EO satellite MisrSat-2 into orbit, together with Starpool-02A and -02B for the Chinese satellite startup EllipSpace.
MisrSat-2 is an optical EO satellite with a spatial resolution of 8 metres in multispectral mode, and two metres in panchromatic mode. It has an estimated mission life of five years, and data from the satellite will be used to advance the land and water resource management, agricultural productivity and coastal change monitoring. It is a technology transfer project between the Egyptian Space Agency and the Chinese government. Through this project, Egypt has been able to develop its knowledge regarding satellite development and operations, and is reported as now being the first country in Africa to have satellite assembly and testing capabilities.
The Starpool-02A and -02B satellites are reported to be remote sensing satellites, but there are no details on their specifications. They are believed to be part of a ‘StarPool Plan’ designed to improve China’s wide-area surveillance by integrating communication, navigation, and remote sensing systems.
Summary
Good news for the UK space sector this week with the new Horizon and Copernicus agreements, plus the TRUTHS contracts. It is hoped that these activities will enable the sector to push forward in the coming years.
