1. BNSC Agency Report to WGISS21 Budapest, May 2006 Wyn Cudlip
BNSC/QinetiQ

2. BNSC Instruments/Missions
Current Instruments
ATSR2 on ERS
AATSR on Envisat
CHRIS on Proba
Disaster Management Constellation
Small Satellites
TopSat – launched October 2005.
Planned Medium Satellites
TerraSAR L-Band

3. PROBA Project for On-Board Autonomy
ESA mission (on Indian Launcher in 2000)
Platform technology demonstrator
615 km sun synchronous orbit.
Free ride for:
CHRIS - Compact High-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
SREM - Radiation measurement sensor
DDEBIE - debris measurement sensor
Wide angle Earth pointing camera
Star tracker and gyroscope

4. CHRIS Compact High-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
operates from 400 nm to 1050 nm
14km swath
63 bands at 36m resolution or
18 bands at 18m resolution
Science Team include:
University of Swansea
ESSC, University of Reading
University of Plymouth

5. Disaster Management Constellation (DMC)
32m res., 600km swath.
5 satellites in orbit; can provide daily coverage
UK, Algeria, Turkey, Nigeria, China
Surrey Satellite (SSTL) Platform.

6. TerraSAR L-Band Working in tandem with German TerraSAR X-Band
X-band: 1-3 m res.; twin polarisation.
L-Band: 5m res.; multi-pol
(HH, HV, VH, VV).
Launch year mission
25 Products Feed into InfoTerra
to satisfy wide-ranging commercial market place.
Possible ESA involvement

7. TopSat Summary
Optical imagery (at Nadir) with Ground Sampling Distance of
2.8m pan (17 x 17 km)
5.6m multi-spectral (12 x 12 km)
Sun-synchronous orbit (686km)
Low cost demonstrator (20M$)
Launched 27 October
All main technical objectives achieved
Data download to mobile antenna
Funding level- not strategic

8. RAPIDS Trailer TopSat tracking and data reception 2.7m antenna
2 hours set up time
Very rapid downlinking to user – data on ground within 2 minutes of imaging
The trailer towed by a Land Rover, which contains local image processing and visualisation facilities. RAPIDS has already been demonstrated with ERS and SPOT.

10. Current Status
Launched successfully on a Cosmos rocket 27 October [07:52 BST]
Telemetry received on 1st UK pass
Orbit altitude 686km, 1045 LTAN
Commissioning complete – all main functionality proven
Ops underway – delivering images to users

11. Atlantic City, New Jersey

12. Atlantic City, New Jersey

13. Central London

14. Central London

15. TopSat Follow-on Concepts
TopSat Plus: Similar resolution to TopSat demonstrator; greater imaging size, capacity, accuracy & greater lifetime
TopSat Enhanced: Pushing towards limit of current camera design, and lowering altitude to achieve 1.65m resolution (pan).
TopSat One Metre: Aspiration to achieve 1m resolution with low cost spacecraft – subject to developments in lightweight optics and structures
Low costs supports constellations to give high timeliness