|
talksatellite EMEA |
.gif) |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Daily news   |
Government backs
ground-breaking space technology to tackle climate
change 9 November 2021 Eleven UK organisations have
been awarded a share of just under £7 million of
government funding to put into action the latest
advances in space innovation. The majority of the
projects focus on climate change or environmental
management, with others designed to secure our
telecommunication systems and protect digital
infrastructure against cyber-attacks. Projects receiving the cash
boost include Global Satellite Vu Ltd, which will
build a compact high-resolution infrared camera for
satellites to measure thermal emissions from our
homes, schools and places of work, helping to
improve energy efficiency. The Open University in
Milton Keynes will develop the mission concept for
“TreeView”, a forestry and management tool that will
support a nature-based solution to tackling climate
change by monitoring the health of trees from space. Science Minister George Freeman
said: Whether it’s monitoring
greenhouse gas emissions or supporting increased
tree planting, this new funding will take
game-changing ideas from the UK space sector and our
brilliant scientists, and turn them into reality. The funding comes from the UK
Space Agency’s National Space Innovation Programme
(NSIP) and has been announced today (9th November
2021) as the UK hosts the COP 26 climate talks in
Glasgow. Space is playing an essential role in the
fight against climate change, with satellites
collecting half of the 56 types of data we need to
measure and understand climate change. This £7 million in funding is
in addition to £7 million provided last year which
was to support the projects through their
development phase. The new funding ranges from
between £157,000 and £1 million per project and will
allow the organisations to take their projects to
the next stage and implement their innovative ideas. The government recently
launched the National Space Strategy which outlines
the long-term plans to grow the UK space sector and
make Britain a science and technology superpower,
including building on manufacturing and technology
capacity, attracting investment and working
internationally. Projects in detail: Development of Novel High
Resolution Infrared Sensor Payload for
Heat Detection Global Satellite Vu Ltd,
Surrey £999,698 Global Satellite Vu Ltd will
develop and launch the world’s first small satellite
that will deliver high-quality thermal video and
thermal still imagery of the Earth, initiating the
design, build and integration of the infrared
camera. By launching a small constellation of
infrared satellites, this project will enable the
measurement of thermal emissions from any structure
on the planet. The technology will act as the
Earth’s thermometer to monitor energy efficiency,
economic activity and carbon footprint. Consortium Partners: Surrey
Satellite Technology Ltd and KISPE TreeView: Precision Forestry to
Tackle Climate Change The Open University, Milton
Keynes £477,456 Trees are a natural carbon-sink
and are vital to support diverse
ecosystems. TreeView will enable precision forestry
and management to be achieved remotely from space on
a national and global scale, supporting a
nature-based solution to climate change. Consortium Partners: In-Space,
Beck Optronic Solutions, XCAM, Adiuvo Engineering,
Teledyne e2v, 2Excel Geo, Centre for Ecology and
Hydrology, Forest Research Quantum Accelerometer Climate
Explorer (Q-ACE) Thales Alenia Space,
Oxfordshire £345,032 The Quantum Accelerometer
Climate Explorer (Q-ACE) mission will bring together
the University of Birmingham and Teledyne e2v’s cold
atom interferometry technology with
Thales Alenia Space’s new revolutionary Very Low
Earth Orbit ‘SkimSat’ satellite platform. The work
will help to develop the Q-ACE mission that will
measure the density of the Earth’s thermosphere and
provide data that will help better
understand climate predictions. Consortium Partners: Teledyne
e2v, University of Birmingham, RAL Space, Fraunhofer
UK Research Limited and the Met Office High resolution thermal
infrared space telescopes for globally monitoring
the energy efficiency of buildings University of Cambridge
(Institute of Astronomy and Cambridge Zero) £726,978 Thermal infrared telescopes in
space can monitor the energy output of buildings
which makes them a powerful tool for ensuring that
governments, companies and even individuals are on
track to meet internationally agreed carbon emission
goals. The team will study how the data can be used
and develop prototypes for an innovative unfolding
telescope as part of a nanosat constellation to
accurately produce thermal images of buildings and
infrastructure. Consortium Partners: Open
Cosmos Ltd, S4 Limited and Durham University ROKS payload flight model –
implementation phase Craft Prospect Limited,
Glasgow £869,769 The Responsive Operations for
Key Services (ROKS) mission will demonstrate
technologies for future secure telecommunication
systems using Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and
supported by artificial intelligence. This
implantation phase will incorporate progress since
the discovery phase, through to flight model build,
test, and finally delivery to demonstrate in-orbit
operation by 2022. Consortium Partners: University
of Strathclyde, University of Bristol, Fraunhofer
Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP) Global Lidar
Altimetry MISsion: GLAMIS University of Edinburgh £300,236 The School of Geosciences at
the University of Edinburgh, GLAMIS will bring
together expertise from Scotland’s growing space and
photonics sectors to pioneer a new approach to
space-borne lidar; a system capable of mapping
global topography and above-ground structure and
change detection. This phase will focus on
increasing coverage through increasing laser
wavelength stability and signal processing. Consortium Partners: Fraunhofer
UK Research Ltd (Glasgow), UK Astronomy Tech Centre,
Resilience Constellation Management Ltd and Space
Flow Limited. Faraday Digital In-Space Missions Limited,
Hampshire £157,366 Faraday Digital will provide a
global LEO ultra-wideband communications and
processing infrastructure which can be used by third
parties to develop, test and deploy a substantial
range of applications and services. This activity
will de-risk the remaining technology elements in
preparation for a flight demonstration in 2023.
Ultimately, the disruptive Faraday Digital service
will provide a ubiquitous, in-orbit infrastructure
which can underpin the new space revolution and
provide the ability to upload and deliver new
services from space on timescales of weeks instead
of the traditional three-five years. Consortium
Partners: Subcos Wave RF Ltd Laser Communications for
CubeSats University of Northumbria at
Newcastle £644,617 The aim of the project is to
replace the existing low-speed radio frequency
transceiver used in CubeSats with the high-speed,
light weight and lower power free-space optical
transceivers, enabling a step-change in our approach
to communications constellations and space science
missions. By the end of this project, a test-bed
design will have been developed together with a
mission design study for future testing of the
system in space. Consortium Partners: SMS
Electronics Limited, Durham University and e2E Group Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder
Constellation of Nanosatellites for Climate change
And Mitigation (HYMS CONCAM) STFC RAL Space, Oxfordshire £814,129 As average global temperatures
rise, hazards such as heatwaves and floods grow in
frequency and severity, and chronic hazards
intensify, such as drought and rising sea levels.
Improved observations of our weather systems and
more accurate forecasts are essential for our
understanding, planning, and mitigation of extreme
events. STFC RAL Space is developing a new small
satellite observation system using microwave sensors
that will enhance our ability to monitor our
planet’s increasing weather variability. These
observations will support meteorological services to
deliver accurate and timely weather forecasts that
will enhance our ability to react to climate change. Consortium Partners:
NanoAvionics UK, STAR Dundee UK and UK Met Office GHGWatch Geospatial Insight,
Birmingham £324,812 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions
are the critical factor driving climate change and
temperature increase, but detection and monitoring
of locations where emissions are occurring is
problematic and expensive using current
technologies. Building on the successful outcomes of
their discover project, Geospatial Insight aims to
deliver a space-based operational solution to
detect, quantify and monitor point source plume
emitters of Greenhouse Gases, focusing initially on
methane - this project will focus on developing a
service targeted at commercial users in the Oil &
Gas and “Green” Finance sectors. Consortium Partner: University
of Leicester Towards a Federated Satellite
Quantum Key Distribution System Arqit Ltd, London £998,000 Our digital economy is at the
mercy of advances in quantum computing which could
threaten our encryption services. Arqit supplies a
unique quantum encryption Platform-as-a-Service,
QuantumCloud™, which makes the communications links
of any networked device secure against current and
future forms of attack – even from a quantum
computer. Arqit’s Federated Quantum System enables
private instances of its QuantumCloud™ product to be
provided to customers that want control of their
cryptographic infrastructure. Consortium Partners: STFC RAL
Space, QinetiQ Group plc, Honeywell (COM DEV Ltd),
Heriot-Watt University, Virgin Orbit UK Limited. |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
