(CercleFinance.com) – Thales Alenia Space and Britain’s QinetiQ announce that they have signed a study contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the feasibility of multi-mission nanosatellites in very low Earth orbit.
This study phase aims to refine the design of the Skimsat demonstrator, a compact and modular satellite which aims to significantly reduce the cost of Earth observation by basing it on lower operational altitudes (around 300 km ).
The small size of the device must in particular make it compatible with launchers designed for small satellites in terms of dimensions, in order to offer customers shorter execution times than those of current conventional launchers.
This technology is also expected to foster new innovative applications, particularly in high-resolution imaging, either for the commercial market or for the scientific community.
The study will be conducted in the United Kingdom by Thales Alenia Space, the joint venture between Thales (67%) and the Italian Leonardo (33%), and by teams from QinetiQ Space in Belgium.