Jason Ford

Astrium leads observation hub consortium

News

Astrium has been chosen by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to develop an Earth Observation (EO) Hub at the new International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) in Harwell, Oxfordshire.

The £4.9m contract will see Astrium lead an industrial consortium, which will be responsible for the design and integration of an EO Hub. This will include a spacecraft operations centre capable of co-ordinating multiple satellites and processing payload data.

Astrium’s team includes VEGA, a professional services company, as core partner, together with SSTL, a specialist small satellite manufacturer, as well as Astrium subsidiary Infoterra.

According to Astrium, the development of the Hub will provide the UK with its own ground capability, an essential first step in establishing an overall sovereign EO capability and a key recommendation of the recent Space Innovation Growth Strategy.

The strategy was developed as a joint government, industry and academia initiative that set out a 20-year vision for the future growth of the UK space industry.

Work on the design and installation of the EO Hub, which will be housed in the Electron Building at Harwell, will start immediately and is expected to be operational by March 2011.

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