African satellites in orbit
 Three satellites for Nigeria, Turkey and the UK, have just joined the
Algerian satellite launched last year as part of the Disaster Management
Constellation (DMC). The satellites, each weighing about 100kg, were launched
into low Earth orbit on 27 September 2003, at 06:11 GMT onboard a Kosmos
launcher from Plesetsk in northern Russia. Together they will transform the
ability of international disaster relief organisations to monitor and provide
emergency assistance to disaster-stricken zones whenever and wherever they
occur.
The launch of the Nigerian satellite also marks Africa's third country to
have a presence in space after South Africa and Algeria.
Disaster monitoring
Each year natural and man-made disasters around the world cause devastation,
loss of life, widespread human suffering and huge economic losses. Images of
disaster-stricken areas are often made available too late to be of real use to
relief co-ordination agencies on the ground as current Earth observation
satellites offer only infrequent image revisits and the delivery of critical
information may take months due to periodic cloud cover and tasking conflicts.
Due to its daily imaging revisit capability, the DMC will provide a service
that will greatly improve the response time to aid the management and mitigation
of disasters whenever, and wherever, they occur. The processed images from the
DMC satellites will be distributed to relief teams on the ground by the Reuters
AlterNet Foundation -- formed in 1997 to help the work of relief professionals
around the world.
Led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), seven organisations from
Africa, Asia and Europe have formed a "DMC Consortium" and agreed to
contribute microsatellites into the constellation. The DMC Consortium comprises
a partnership between organisations in Algeria, China, Nigeria, Thailand,
Turkey, Vietnam and the United Kingdom. The objective of the Consortium is to
derive the maximum mutual benefit from the constellation through collaboration
and cooperation between the DMC partners. The international partners in the DMC
Consortium have agreed to exchange their DMC satellite resources and data to
achieve a daily Earth observation imaging capability for disaster monitoring and
other dynamic phenomena as well as for national and commercial applications.
Through this unique international partnership, each satellite is individually
owned and operated, but able to benefit from immense shared resources and data,
making the DMC a remarkable yet affordable space asset for developing countries.
The constellation enables applications that would otherwise require instruments
costing hundreds of times as much.
Satellites are operational
AlSAT-1, Algeria's first satellite is fully operational in orbit and
demonstrating the DMC spacecraft's remarkable capability by returning
outstanding Earth observation imagery. The International Charter has recently
used AlSAT-1 imagery to observe the Monserrat volcano eruption. Algeria has been
able to tap in to a wealth of available applications such as geological and
structural mapping, agricultural damage and yield data and land cover mapping.
Engineers in Turkey, the UK and Nigeria have begun activating the three new
DMC satellites launched last month. All three satellites have been contacted by
ground controllers, and have transmitted critical information back to Earth.
This early telemetry has confirmed that all three satellites survived the
rigours of launch and reached orbit successfully.
During the next few weeks, engineers will work to stabilise the satellites,
test out all on-board systems, and position the satellites in their intended
orbits. Following this, the satellites will begin their intended remote sensing
missions.
Imaging
 The imaging capability of the DMC spacecraft is remarkable, scanning an area
600km x 600km - ten times that available from any other commercial satellite in
orbit. Another first, the constellation can re-image any scene on Earth within
24 hours. Currently the best re-imaging capability from any commercial satellite
in space is just once every 16 days.
The DMC will provide daily imaging at 32m resolution and up to a 600km swath
across the world, enabling rapid repeat imaging for regular updates of disaster
situations - something not achievable by any other commercial satellite
currently in orbit.The DMC has been made possible - and affordable - by the
highly capable microsatellites developed by SSTL that provide high quality
multispectral imaging at a small fraction of the cost of a conventional
satellite, thus making the constellation and this humanitarian service actually
practicable.
According to Satellite developers, Surrey Satellite Technology, the cost of a
DMC satellite is around £4.5 million. However, both Algeria and Nigeria took
advantage of know-how training alongside their satellite project and so their
contract costs were in the region of £8 million.
More information
This past month has seen the successful launch of BILSAT-1 for Turkey
(Tubitak-ODTU Bilten), NigeriaSat-1 for Nigeria (National Space Research &
Development Agency) UK-DMC (UK Government-funded) AlSAT-1 for SSTL's Algerian
customer, Centre National des Techniques Spatiales and the Algerian Space
Agency. An enhanced DMC satellite for China, currently under construction at
SSTL at the Surrey Space Centre, will join the DMC when it is launched in early
2005.
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd : www.sstl.co.uk
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