The UK aspires to join Spain and Portugal as a member of the Atlantic Constellation and contribute a new Pathfinder satellite designed and built by a UK-based company, adding to the innovative Earth and coastal observation and data exchange network, the UK space agency announced on Tuesday.
This new commitment was announced on the opening day of the UK Space Conference in Belfast, It will strengthen the UK’s national capabilities in Earth observation technology It will complement the UK’s contributions to the EU’s Copernicus programme, the European Space Agency and bilateral missions.
Provided by the British Space Agency Three million pounds to support the construction of the new Pathfinder satellite, Which will be one of the first projects in the constellation, co-funded by Open Cosmos, based at Harwell Space Campus in Oxfordshire.
Atlantic Constellation is a pioneering global project to develop a constellation of small satellites to monitor oceans, land and climate. A satellite built in the UK will have the same design and It will be launched at the same orbital level as three others from Portugal Which constitutes the first batch of the constellation. This will significantly increase the frequency of visits early in constellation formation, providing valuable, regularly updated data and supporting vital services such as natural disaster detection, monitoring and mitigation.
UK Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology Andrew Griffiths said: “Earth observation will play an absolutely vital role in tackling global challenges such as climate change and disaster relief, quickly providing the data we need while supporting key UK industries such as agriculture and energy.” to Working with Open Cosmos on a new satellite By supporting our Atlantic partners, Spain and Portugal, we can harness space technology to achieve our shared goals, while creating new skills and jobs for the future to grow the UK economy.
Open Cosmos is a Barcelona company A growing company that recently added two additional lunar missions to OpenConstellation, it successfully launched on the 11th and raised $50 million in Series B funding from major impact investors to accelerate its international growth and expand its product offerings.
“Building a joint satellite constellation is a very effective way to obtain diverse data about each region of interest,” said Rafael Jorda Séquier, CEO of Open Cosmos. The UK joining Spain and Portugal in the Atlantic Group is a big step forward in the National EO Strategy and we are very proud of it “Open Cosmos has been contracted to deliver the UK’s first Pathfinder satellite.”
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