MOD invests £1m in 'wrapped-rib' satellite technology

News

UK space technology firm Oxford Space Systems (OSS) has received £1m investment from the MOD (Ministry Of Defence) to help develop a new generation of deployable satellite antennas.

The cash injection will see OSS develop its so-called “wrapped-rib” antenna technology for use in a variety of civil and defence applications.

Developed in response to the high cost of putting payloads into space, the technology is based on a specialist carbon-fibre composite that can be launched in a compact, lightweight structure, but which unfolds to form a structure several metres across once in space.

The investment, which will be used to scale up the technology, represents the largest contract placed with a first-time supplier by the MOD’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA). The ministry claims that it will make the UK the first European country with the capability of a flight-proven parabolic deployable antenna.

The antenna will be used to carry out fine-resolution Low Earth Orbit Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery, a technique which enables all weather Earth observation, irrespective of time of day or night and which provides unique advantages for both civil and defence applications.

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