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Two UK satellites have been launched by India's ISRO:
The first all-British radar satellite has launched to orbit on an Indian rocket. Called NovaSAR, it has the ability to take pictures of the surface of the Earth in every kind of weather, day or night.
The spacecraft will assume a number of roles but its designers specifically want to see if it can help monitor suspicious shipping activity. Lift-off from the Satish Dhawan spaceport occurred at 17:38 BST.
NovaSAR was joined on its rocket by a high-resolution optical satellite - that is, an imager that sees in ordinary light. Known as S1-4, this spacecraft will discern objects on the ground as small as 87cm across. Both it and NovaSAR were manufactured by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited of Guildford.
There are a few interesting aspects to this story: the satellite is completely British-built--it seems unusual in the era of global manufacturing. Second, it was put into orbit on an Indian rocket, which points up India's growing launch capabilities. Third, the satellite is tasked with tackling suspicious shipping, with implications for smuggling, piracy, and the environment.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 17 2018, @03:21PM (2 children)
If the satellite has an orbital period of about 90 minutes, then you would have a series of 90-minute pictures of where a slow moving ship is.
But . . . each orbit doesn't cover the same part of the earth surface as the previous orbit. This doesn't sound like a fleet of satellites. So how often would a ship come under the watchful eye of the satellite?
Similarly, how often would this satellite have a view of my back yard?
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(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday September 17 2018, @07:43PM (1 child)
I found a lot more information at the ESA mission page [esa.int]. It describes the orbit as 'sun-synchronous,' so it will only see things at a specific local time. With a 90 minute orbit, there would be 16 passes per day, or double that if you count both the daytime and nighttime passes. Depending on which sensor mode is in use, the swath width varies from 15 km to 750 km, so this thing won't be gathering detailed imagery of the entire Earth every day. Furthermore, the radar is fairly high power relative to specified average power use, so it is powered with 'super capacitors' that allow only 2-3 minutes sensor use per orbit.
All that being said, this site refers to a 2015 launch in the future tense, so it may not be current data, or could even be a previous version of the satellite that has a similar name. I haven't done much research...
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 17 2018, @09:31PM
Satellite design probably gets frozen long before launch. Before manufacturing even.
Unlike the software world, they probably don't make changes up to the last minute. Everything has to be tested. The entire mission is very expensive and a fatal flaw could, unsurprisingly, be fatal, which would be a surprise. Nobody wants to be the one that screwed up a billion dollar mission.
Anything that emits electromagnetic radiation probably must get approvals from many agencies, both foreign and domestic.
I strongly suspect a 2015 document is pretty close.
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