TopSat

TopSat (Tactical Operational Satellite) is an Earth observation satellite that was launched on October 27, 2005 alongside the Beijing-1 Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite by a Cosmos rocket from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. TopSat carries out imaging with a ground resolution of 2.5m. Much smaller and cheaper than other imaging satellites of similar high resolution, TopSat will be used to test the feasibility of providing images on demand to portable groundstations such as might be deployed by the military or by disaster relief organisations.

TopSat was built in the United Kingdom by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, QinetiQ and The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory under the British National Space Centre Mosaic programme. The engineering model of TopSat now lives in the space gallery of London's Science Museum. [ [http://www.space.co.uk/DataBank/Transcripts/20080329DrStuartEves/tabid/437/Default.aspx Space.co.uk Transcript: Stuart Eves interviewed at the 2008 UK Space Conference] ]

TopSat won the 2006 Popular Science "Best of What's New" Grand Award in the Aviation and Space category. [ [http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2006/product_2.html Popular Science "Best of What's New" Grand Award, Science and Technology] to TopSat.]

External links

* [http://www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2005/4th_quarter/TopSat_first_image.html New era of low-cost Earth observation dawns as first images received from TopSat] , QinetiQ press release, 19 December 2005.
* [http://www.qinetiq.com/home/defence/defence_solutions/space/topsat.html Topsat project]

References