A satellite designed and built in Aylesbury was launched last month (by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenburg Air Force Base) into a sun-synchronous orbit 575km above the Earth, as part of Spaceflight’s SSO-A SmallSat Express mission.

This was the largest ‘ride-share’ mission by a US-based launch vehicle to date with 64 satellites launched by just one rocket for 34 different organisations.

The VESTA satellite will support two-way maritime information services between ship and shore.

Graham Turnock, the UK Space Agency’s chief executive (www.gov.uk/ukspaceagency), said: “There are still vast areas of the Earth where communication remains difficult, none more so than out at sea.

“Satellites can bridge this gap, but testing new technology is risky and expensive, so we are helping to fund promising UK technologies like VESTA.”

Chris Bee, a business manager at Honeywell Aerospace UK (www.aerospace.honeywell.com), said: “While leading the way in demonstrating small data-packet transfer from a small payload to remote maritime locations, this mission is also leading us into an even broader range of remote communication scenarios to increase the connectivity of our world.

“The satellite will provide traffic information and meteorological data, plus two-way communications to support commercial fleet monitoring by relaying real-time ship engine, emissions and fuel data to operators.”