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SSTL Wins U.K. TechDemoSat-1 Development Grant

By Mark Holmes | October 20, 2010

      [Satellite TODAY 10-20-10] Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) won a demonstration satellite grant in the United Kingdom to begin the design phase of a national technology demonstration satellite, TechDemoSat-1, the company announced Oct. 19.
          The U.K. Technology Strategy Board and the South East England Development Agency provided a grant of 770,000 British pounds ($1.2 million) to fund the core mission design elements. SSTL, U.K. industry and U.K. academia will fund the payload technologies, and the grant will enable the final payload selection process to be completed. Following the design phase, a further grant of 2.7 million British pounds ($4.3 million) will be released, and the TechDemoSat-1 program will transition into the build and test phase.
          “TechDemoSat-1 will be the first collaborative U.K. satellite launched since the establishment of the U.K. Space Agency and will demonstrate the advanced capabilities of state-of-the-art small satellite technology for scientific and commercial applications. It will also be among the first missions to make use of the ground station facilities that are currently under construction at the U.K.’s new International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) at Harwell, Oxfordshire,” U.K. Technology Strategy Board CEO Iain Gray said in a statement.