London, 17 February 2023. – On the 16th of February, Astroscale Ltd. (“Astroscale UK”) announced it has won funding from Dstl (The MOD Defence Science and Technology Laboratory) to explore space-based space domain awareness (SB-SDA) mission concepts for launch in the 2030s.
Astroscale Ltd. is teaming with Raytheon NORSS and SJE Space Ltd as a consortium for the project. Raytheon NORSS, a business unit within Raytheon UK, specialises in innovative space solutions, providing end-to-end SDA capability. SJE Space has acted as one of the technical coordinators of the Global Network On Sustainability in Space (GNOSIS) for the past three years.
The aim of the study is to advance knowledge of SB-SDA through a comprehensive review of the current technologies and techniques that are used in missions and how these will progress over the coming decades. Current and future SDA capability gaps will be analysed and how SB-SDA technologies will fill these gaps.
“The Astroscale UK SSA team is very pleased to have won this Dstl funded study,” says Mekhi Dhesi, Astroscale SSA Solutions Engineer. “The study will allow us to grow our SB-SDA/ISSA expertise and provide the opportunity for further exciting collaboration with Raytheon NORSS and SJE Space.”
The consortium has been awarded £100,000 for the study and will use previous experience in SDA, having worked with companies such as Fujitsu and Raytheon NORSS on several government funded Space Surveillance Tracking (SST) projects.
