387
TER
LOW COST SMALL SATELLITES FOR EARTH OBSERVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
TRANSFER TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
)roté*
***, Rob
Martin Sweeting*, Wei Sun*
* Surrey Space Centre - University of Surrey
Guildford Surrey GU2 5XH
United Kingdom
ISPRS Commission VI Working Group 3
Abstract
>ol for soil
geometry,
etrieval of
le viewing
mmatched
The Surrey Space Centre of University of Surrey in England has pioneered low cost small satellites
for Earth Observation since the fifth of its microsatellites (UoSAT-5) was launched in 1991.
UoSAT-5 was the only non-government controlled satellite providing independent Earth imaging
over Iraq following the Gulf war. Another nine microsatellites and minisatellites carrying remote
sensing payloads have been launched by Surrey since then. These satellites are so called 'Smaller,
Faster, Cheaper and Better' satellites. The typical cost of a Surrey's EO microsatellite is around
$3M. At this fractional cost of the conventional Earth observation satellites, the latest Surrey's
microsatellite - TMSAT has been transmitting LandSAT MSS equivalent images since it was
launched in July 1998. Recently, UoSAT-12 which is the first Surrey minisatellite was launched on
sed as an
formance,
t, growing
trough the
:ent in the
y yields a
21 April 1999 and is providing 8m panchromatic and 32-metre multi-spectral images in 6 bands.
Customers such as Korea, Thailand, Portugal, Chile, Malaysia and PR China have the complete
ownership of microsatellites built collaboratively at Surrey and are able to take pictures whenever
and wherever they want in the world. The satellites are controlled and images are received by the
mission control groundstations installed in their own countries at cost of around $350,000. These
countries have also acquired microsatellite know-how transfer from Surrey through design,
manufacture, test and launch their first national microsatellite with full participation of a team of
validation
engineers from these nations. They often became the nucleus of their national space agencies, such
as Korea who built their second satellite (KITSAT-2) back in their own country and now KITSAT-
3 is going to be launched on 29 May 1999. The 'Surrey Space Club' was formed by these partners to
promote international co-operation, particularly on remote sensing applications using these low cost
small satellites. A 'Disaster Monitoring Network' comprising seven microsatellites in 772 km sun-
synchronized orbit is the focus for the first collaborative mission of the Surrey Space Club
members. The network is able to provide daily images anywhere in the world with four spectral-
bands at resolution 40m. African countries are welcome to participate in this project. The paper will
describe these extremely low cost Earth observation microsatellites and minisatellites, show some
remarkable pictures taken by these small satellites, present an affordable and comprehensive
microsatellite know-how transfer programme to developing countries and discuss the Disaster
Network proposal for international co - operation.
