TopSat

TopSat
Spacecraft properties

Mission type	Optical imaging
COSPAR ID	2005-043B^[1]

Manufacturer	SSTL

Start of mission
Launch date	27 October 2005, 06:52:26 (2005-10-27UTC06:52:26Z) UTC
Rocket	Kosmos-3M
Launch site	Plesetsk 132/1

Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Sun-synchronous
Perigee	683 kilometres (424 mi)
Apogee	707 kilometres (439 mi)
Inclination	98.18 degrees
Period	98.7 minutes

TopSat (Tactical Operational Satellite) is a British Earth observation satellite, currently in Low Earth Orbit. The nanosatellite was launched in October 2005 alongside the Beijing-1 Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite by a Cosmos rocket from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia.^[2]

Mission

TopSat carries out imaging with a ground resolution of 2.5 m. Much smaller and cheaper than other imaging satellites of similar high resolution, TopSat has been used to demonstrate the feasibility of providing images on demand to portable ground stations, such as that which might be deployed by the military or another disaster relief organisation.

TopSat was built in the United Kingdom by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, QinetiQ and The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory under the British National Space Centre Mosaic programme. The engineering model of TopSat now lives in the space gallery of London's Science Museum.^[3]

TopSat won the 2006 Popular Science "Best of What's New" Grand Award in the Aviation and Space category.^[4]

External links

New era of low-cost Earth observation dawns as first images received from TopSat, QinetiQ press release, 19 December 2005.
Topsat project

References

↑ http://celestrak.com/satcat/2005/2005-043.asp
↑ "TopSat". UK Space Agency. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
↑ Space.co.uk Transcript: Stuart Eves interviewed at the 2008 UK Space Conference
↑ Popular Science "Best of What's New" Grand Award, Science and Technology to TopSat.

← 2004 · Orbital launches in 2005 · 2006 →

Deep Impact \| Kosmos 2414 · Universitetsky-Tatyana \| AMC-12 \| USA-181 \| XTAR-EUR · Maqsat-B2 (Sloshsat-FLEVO) \| Himawari 6 \| Progress M-52 (TNS-0) \| XM-3 \| Inmarsat-4 F1 \| Ekspress AM-2 \| USA-165 \| Apstar VI \| Soyuz TMA-6 \| DART \| Spaceway 1 \| USA-182 \| Cartosat-1 · HAMSAT \| NOAA-18 \| DirecTV-8 \| Foton-M No.2 \| Progress M-53 \| Molniya-3K No.12 \| Cosmos 1 \| Intelsat Americas 8 \| Ekspress AM-3 \| Shijian 7 \| Suzaku \| STS-114 (Raffaello MPLM) \| FSW-21 \| Thaicom 4 \| MRO \| Kirari · Reimei \| Monitor-E \| FSW-22 \| Kosmos 2415 \| Progress M-54 (RadioSkaf) \| Anik F1R \| USA-183 \| Soyuz TMA-7 \| CryoSat \| Shenzhou 6 \| Syracuse 3A · Galaxy 15 \| USA-186 \| Beijing-1 · TopSat · Sina-1 · SSETI Express (CubeSat XI-V · UWE-1 · nCUBE-2) · Mozhaets-5 · Rubin-5 \| Inmarsat-4 F2 \| Venus Express \| Spaceway-2 · Telkom-2 \| Gonets-D1M No.13 · Kosmos 2416 \| Meteosat 9 · INSAT-4A \| Kosmos 2417 · Kosmos 2418 · Kosmos 2419 \| GIOVE-A \| AMC-23

Payloads are separated by bullets ( · ), launches by pipes ( \| ). Manned flights are indicated in bold text. Uncatalogued launch failures are listed in italics. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are denoted in brackets.

Qinetiq

Divisions and
subsidiaries

Current	Automatika Boldon James Cyveillance Foster-Miller

Former	Omni-ID

Shareholdings and
partnerships

Products

Places and vessels

Predecessors

People

Category

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 5/27/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.