The company has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) as the prime contractor for the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite — a mission to monitor atmospheric chemistry.
As part of a total satellite programme of more than €80m (£68.6m), UK industry will deliver the mission platform and significant elements of the instrument of this mission.
David Willetts, minister for universities and science, said: ‘This project is yet more evidence of the UK’s world-leading position in satellite technology and will play an important role in understanding climate change.’
The Sentinel-5 Precursor mission is part of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme (GMES), which is a joint undertaking of the European Community and the ESA.
GMES claims it will supply geo-information products and services, helping European institutions and public authorities to fulfil their mission of safeguarding the civil population, managing risks and protecting the environment.
The single-satellite, low-cost mission aims to bridge the observation gap predicted for when the current atmospheric chemistry measuring satellite ENVISAT reaches the end of its operations.
Both ENVISAT and ERS-2 missions have had major UK scientific involvement, and the Sentinel-5 pre-cursor mission will help maintain a stream of more than 20 years of data on climate change.
With a launch scheduled for early 2015 and a seven-year lifetime, the Sentinel-5 pre-cursor mission will maintain the continuity of science data before the Sentinel-5 instrument becomes operational towards the end of this decade. The Sentinel 5 instrument is scheduled to fly on the MetOp Second Generation satellites in a polar orbit.
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Where will all the raw materials come from for the manufacturing process? How will they be transported to the factory and what is going to be done with the various scrap and residues?