Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) successfully launch two further satellites

With the successful launch of the UK-DMC2 and Deimos-1 satellites on July 29th, SSTL has expanded the capability of the world’s only spaced-based disaster monitoring system, the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). The satellites were launched onboard a Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Both satellites will bring significant enhancements to the DMC, which provides Earth observation imagery for a range of commercial and environmental applications as well as to the International Charter: Space and Major Disasters. The first satellite in the DMC, AlSAT-1, was launched in 2002 and with the addition of these further two satellites the total number of operational DMC “eyes in the sky” has been increased to six.

SSTL’s Chairman, Sir Martin Sweeting, commented: “These latest two satellites will advance the capability of the DMC, an international constellation conceived and established by SSTL to provide affordable Earth observation space assets to all, and continue to demonstrate the commercial value of space as evidenced by SSTL’s investment in UK-DMC2."

A company that began as a spin-off of the University of Surrey in the United Kingsdom, SSTL opened its US headquarters in Colorado in August 2008. Surrey Satellite Technology-US replicates SSTL’s UK efforts in the design, engineering, manufacture and integration of a variety of space systems, to include LEO, GEO and interplanetary missions.

To find out more about UK-DMC2, and its future role in disaster relief and Earth observation visit www.sstl.co.uk/Missions/UK-DMC2.