Earlier this month, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) signed a £25 million contract in Beijing with Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Co Ltd (21AT) to provide data from a new Earth Observation satellite (SSTL-S1) due for launch on PSLV (the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle developed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation in the middle of this year).

The contract was signed by Sir Martin Sweeting, executive chairman of SSTL (www.sstl.co.uk), and Mme Wu Shuang, president and chairman of 21AT (and witnessed by the UK Secretary of State Liam Fox).

As the manufacturer and owner of the SSTL-S1 satellite, SSTL will lease ‘imaging payload capacity’ to 21AT for the lifetime of the satellite — designed to be more than seven years.

The satellite will provide sub-1m resolution image data to 21AT’s existing TripleSat Constellation service, comprising three SSTL DMC3 satellites launched in 2015.

SSTL’s Martin Sweeting said: “I am delighted to be here today to sign another contract that extends SSTL’s 15-year long-term UK-China partnership with 21AT and consolidates the success of the TripleSat Constellation service.

"Adding capacity to the Constellation with a new satellite demonstrates the high fidelity of the imagery and the success of 21AT’s business model.”

The design of the SSTL-S1 is identical to the present three satellites in the TripleSat Constellation. It has a mass of 450kg and can acquire ‘multiple targets’ in one pass.

The very-high-resolution imager on board the spacecraft has been designed by SSTL; it will provide sub-1m resolution images in panchromatic mode and sub-4m resolution images in multi-spectral mode, with a ‘swath’ width of about 24km.