Minister of State for Universities and Science praises work of Surrey scientists
Wednesday 21 July 2010
David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, has praised the work of scientists at the University of Surrey during a speech at the Farnborough International Air Show.
Mr Willetts mentioned the work at the Surrey Space Centre (SSC), home to the largest group of academic researchers in space in the UK. He visited SSC earlier in the Spring.
He also visited the University’s exhibition stand at the Air Show, where he met Dr Christopher Bridges and Dr Tanya Vladimirova who both work at SSC.
Mr Willetts commented on the UK’s highly innovative space sector. He highlighted the work of SSC and said: “We have a healthy eco-system for space. It can genuinely deliver knowledge transfer and I have genuine grounds for optimism in the space sector.” He added that growth in the space sector in the UK was 8%-9% for the past year.
Dr Bridges said: “I showed Mr Willetts my work on 'Distributed Satellite Systems' where multiple spacecrafts can be used for greater functionalities such as increased environment sensing, greater ground communications, and spacecraft fractionation.
"My research specifically deals with distributed computing and resource sharing or 'cloud computing' across these satellites. The challenge I briefly discussed was that instead of all the nodes being fixed in one location, like most computer networks on Earth, the satellite nodes in space move very quickly in and out of contact making networking and distributed computing tasks very difficult to manage. This is where my work comes in."
Also featured at the University stand was Dr Yang Gao’s wasp drill project which is a new way of drilling into the surfaces of planets. The stand also showcased the work of the Centre for Communication Systems Research, which is the UK's largest and most well-known academic research centre in mobile and satellite communication systems.
Editors' Notes
About the Surrey Space Centre
The Surrey Space Centre (SSC), a Research Centre of the Faculty of Electronics and Physical Sciences (FEPS) at the University of Surrey, is a world leading Centre of Excellence in Space Engineering, whose aim is to underpin the technical development of the space industry through its advanced research programmes. SSC, comprising 10 academic staff, 11 research fellows and over 60 postgraduate researchers, develops new innovative technologies which are exploited by the space industry.
Surrey's pioneering small satellite activities started in 1979 as an academic activity at the University, leading to the formation of a highly successful spin-out company – Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). Astrium acquired SSTL in 2009 and established a long-term strategic collaboration with the University to further advance the University’s cutting edge space research capacity.
The University of Surrey Space Centre (SSC) remains the world’s leading research centre for small, low cost space missions, generating leading research and bringing innovation to SSTL to push the boundary of low cost small satellite applications; to develop next generation low cost small satellite technologies.
SSC provides well focused space engineering education, postgraduate and industrial short courses, training the next generation space scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and business leaders. It has a large body of PhD, academic and industrial research, with a direct route through SSTL for rapid commercialisation.
SSC's Academic Research Laboratories cover advanced multidisciplinary small satellite and space system engineering techniques for Earth orbit and interplanetary space; innovative communications, remote sensing, robotics and space science payloads for small satellites; and enabling technologies for low cost space exploitation and planetary exploration, working in close collaboration with SSTL.
Media Enquiries
Howard Wheeler, Press Office at the University of Surrey, Tel: +44 (0)1483 686141, or Email mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk
