Just two years after graduating, this engineer watched his cameras installed on the International Space Station

For anyone with even a passing interest in space, the International Space Station (ISS) is a pretty remarkable object: a compelling and inspiring example of international collaboration that transcends the petty squabbles back here on Earth.

But for young electronics engineer Mike Salter, humanity’s most remote manned outpost has a particular significance, as the giant satellite is now home to two advanced Earth-imaging cameras that he played a major role in developing.

Salter, who works as an electronic design engineer at RAL Space (a department at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire), explained that the cameras were developed for Canadian firm UrtheCast, which hopes to charge users for access to a unique view of the world.

The two high-resolution cameras - one of which provides 5m per pixel static imagery and the other 1m per pixel video - were launched to the ISS aboard a Soyuz rocket on November 25, 2013 and were installed shortly afterwards.