• Question: Hi! How many spacecraft have you built?

    Asked by Nancy to Camilla on 14 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Camilla Weiss

      Camilla Weiss answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      Hi Nancy,

      I’ve worked at SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd) for almost 4 years and in that time have been involved in 5 missions with a total of 13 satellites, 3 of which have already launched and 3 more will be launching this summer. Two of those missions are constellations which means they have more than 1 satellite per mission – one constellation has 3 satellites and the other has 6. This is really exciting because all of these missions are very different – there’s a constellation of 3 very high resolution Earth imaging satellites, another constellation of 6 satellites designed to look at the weather and one of them is a type of Radar satellite which will let you look at the Earth even if it’s cloudy (which is obviously very useful for looking a the UK)!

      SSTL has launched over 40 satellites since it started 30 years ago and is currently building over 20, so you can see we’ve been busy recently! Check out our website if you’d like to learn more (www.sstl.co.uk), or feel free to ask any other questions – I don’t get bored talking about work (whether or not the people I’m talking to get bored is another matter 😉

Comments

  • Photo: Dan

    Dan commented on :

    So far, the Satellite Applications Catapult (who I work for) has built around 10 (very tiny) spacecraft. They are very small craft called pocketSats and measure 5cm x 5cm x 5cm. We’re really hoping that one of them might be launched into orbit in the near future! Personally, I haven’t built an entire pocketSat but once I get the chance I’ll definitely give it a go!

  • Photo: Katie

    Katie commented on :

    The company I work for has been around since the 70s, so they have launched lots of satellites. I have been here 3 years and worked on 6 satellites – only 1 has launched so far, but the launch for my current satellite is due later this year.