There is a burgeoning worldwide business in imaging the surface of the planet
A £100m project has been announced to launch three new British spacecraft to image the surface of the Earth.
The satellites, to be orbited in 2013, will be able to see details down to one metre at their best resolution.
It is a commercial venture between the spacecraft manufacturer Surrey Satellite Technology Limited and its data processing subsidiary, DMCii.
Nations that would not necessarily need their own dedicated satellites will be able to buy time on the spacecraft.
“This constellation of three satellites will be owned and operated from the UK but the capacity on the spacecraft will be leased to different international customers,” explained Sir Martin Sweeting, executive chairman of SSTL.
The Guildford-based entrepreneur made the announcement in the Czech capital, Prague, which is hosting this year’s International Astronautical Congress.
SSTL and DMCii already operate a fleet of 100kg-class imaging satellites, but these are owned by different nations, including Btyhe UK, China, Spain and Nigeria.
DMCii acts as their business manager, processing and distributing their data, and collecting any revenues earned from selling the satellites’ pictures to third-party customers.
There is a burgeoning worldwide business in imaging the surface of the planet for all sorts of applications, from making street plans to policing deforestation.
Surrey Satellite has become a world leader in manufacturing small spacecraft for this purpose, lowering costs by making the most of off-the-shelf components developed for ordinary consumer electronics, such as laptops.
SSTL is a spin-out from the University of Surrey. It says its profitable business owes a great deal to government seed-funding 10 years ago that enabled it to test key technologies and market opportunities.
Sir Martin said there had been a 20-to-one return on this investment.
Surrey Satellite was assisted by a technology development programme called Mosaic in 2000
“We’re not asking government to fund grand space programmes,” he told BBC News. “But there are some technologies and some business cases that we need the help of government just to get us over the hump – to get the wheels turning.”
The new spacecraft will be built to a tight timeline, which should see them ready for launch on a single rocket by the end of 2013.
Each satellite will be in a larger class than the current DMCii-managed fleet, topping over 300kg.
As well as their high resolution cameras (1m/pixel resolution panchromatic; 4m/pixel resolution colour), they will also accommodate imagers capable of mapping ultra-wide strips (600km) of the Earth’s surface, albeit at resolutions above 20m.
This broad-swath facility will allow DMCii to continue to use the new satellites for disaster response. Its current fleet plays a leading role in acquiring the urgent maps needed by relief agencies when a natural or man-made calamity strikes a particular corner of the world.
The satellites have been particularly active this year in monitoring the impacts of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
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The search is continuing for a Scottish aid worker and three local staff who were kidnapped in Afghanistan on Sunday, security officials have said.
They were in a two-car convoy in the eastern province of Kunar when the vehicles were stopped by armed men.
The woman, who was employed by US aid group DAI, is known to come from Scotland but has not been named.
The Foreign Office has confirmed a UK citizen is missing and said her relatives had been contacted.
A spokeswoman said: “We are working closely with all the relevant local authorities. We are also in touch with the family and are providing consular assistance.”
Remote area
No-one has so far said they carried out the abduction.
A senior security official told the BBC the group was taken away into nearby mountains on foot, and that the area was being searched with tribal elders.
The US military, which has a strong presence in the area, is also thought to be involved in the search.
A farmer witnessed the abduction but the area is so remote that it was two hours before he was able to report the incident to police, says the BBC’s Kabul correspondent Ian Pannell.
The terrain of the area is difficult and dangerous – it is mountainous and wooded, which would hamper any search efforts from the air, our correspondent added.
Various armed groups operate in the area and the location of the abduction is not thought to be under government control.
Afghans and foreigners can be targeted by gangs seeking ransom money, but they are sometimes sold on to militant groups.
In July, a British private security guard was among four people killed in an attack on DAI offices in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan. Shaun Sexton, 29, from Northumberland, a former member of the Parachute Regiment, was working for the firm’s security sub-contractor, Edinburgh International.
A month later, British doctor Karen Woo and nine other aid workers and translators were killed by gunmen, in the north-eastern province of Badakhshan, in what police said was a robbery.
Dr Woo worked for Christian charity the International Assistance Mission, providing eye care in remote villages.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: ”We’re absolutely determined to press on”
The US state department has said it is “disappointed” by Israel’s decision not to extend its ban on settlement building in the West Bank.
The 10-month moratorium came to an end at midnight (2200 GMT on Sunday).
The UN, the EU and France all expressed disappointment at what Ban Ki-moon called Israel’s “provocative” actions.
Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas said he would respond to the decision after a meeting of Arab leaders in Cairo next Monday.
On Sunday, he had warned that direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks – renewed earlier this month – would be a “waste of time” unless the ban continued.
With peace negotiations in the balance, Mr Abbas is in a difficult position and he may be forced to compromise, says the BBC’s Jon Donnison in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Under pressure from the United States, there are signs Palestinian negotiators may accept that the moratorium on building is not officially going to be extended, as long as no major construction takes place in the coming weeks and months, our correspondent adds.
On Monday, bulldozers started levelling ground for 50 homes in the settlement of Ariel in the northern West Bank, and similar activity was also reported in the settlements of Adam and Oranit. But construction work was reportedly slow because of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The state department praised what it called Mr Abbas’s restraint, adding that the US remained focused on the peace process’s long-term objectives.
Analysis
No-one really knows if the peace talks are on the verge of collapse or if the intense pressure of American mediators can find a way of allowing them to continue.
That a formal or tacit compromise over the vexed issue of building in the settlements wasn’t reached before Sunday night’s deadline speaks volumes for the gulf between Israel and the Palestinians on some major issues.
If they get past this, other issues – such as security, Palestinian refugees and borders – await.
Just as Benjamin Netanyahu was under intense pressure from his own right wing not to extend the settlement freeze, Mahmoud Abbas is coming under almost intolerable strain from his constituents who feel the Palestinians have, quite literally, given too much ground without getting anything in return.
In the coming days a meeting of the PLO’s executive committee may make it clear to Mr Abbas that he can no longer remain in the talks, as building (however symbolic) resumes in Jewish settlements.
The US Middle East envoy, former Senator George Mitchell, would return to the region in an attempt to break the negotiations deadlock, a state department spokesman said.
“We will have further conversations with key countries in the coming days and we hope that the Arab League meeting will continue to affirm its support for the process,” said the spokesman, PJ Crowley.
Speaking at a Paris press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Abbas said he would discuss the settlement issue with Palestinian negotiators in Ramallah on Wednesday, and the 22-member Arab League in Cairo next Monday.
“After all these meetings we may be able to issue a position to clarify what is the Palestinian and Arab opinion on this matter, after Israel has refused to freeze settlements,” he said.
Mr Sarkozy said he deplored Israel’s failure to extend the freeze, adding he would tell Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu in a scheduled telephone conversation that he had to do more.
As the moratorium expired, Mr Netanyahu called on the Palestinians to continue peace talks, which recently resumed after a 20-month pause and have the strong backing of US President Barack Obama.
He made no direct mention of the issue of the settlement freeze, but maintained that it was possible “to achieve a historic framework accord within a year”.
“Israel is ready to pursue continuous contacts in the coming days to find a way to continue peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” he said.
He had earlier urged settlers “to display restraint and responsibility”.
Some Jewish settlers celebrated the end of the construction ban. At the settlement of Revava, near the Palestinian town of Deir Itsia, they released balloons and broke ground for a new nursery school before the moratorium expired.
With peace negotiations in the balance, Mr Abbas is in a difficult position and he may be forced to compromise, says the BBC’s Jon Donnison in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Under pressure from the United States, there are signs Palestinian negotiators may accept the moratorium on building is not officially going to be extended, as long as no major construction takes place in the coming weeks and months, our correspondent adds.
On Monday, bulldozers started levelling ground for 50 homes in the settlement of Ariel in the northern West Bank, and similar activity was also reported in the settlements of Adam and Oranit. But construction work was reportedly slow because of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
It is estimated that about 2,000 housing units in the West Bank already have approval and settler leaders said they planned to resume construction as soon as possible.
The partial moratorium on new construction was agreed by Israel in November 2009 under pressure from Washington.
It banned construction in the West Bank, but never extended the ban to settlements in East Jerusalem.
US President Barack Obama has urged Israel to extend the moratorium, saying it “made a difference on the ground, and improved the atmosphere for talks”.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Middle East war of 1967, settling some 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements which are held to be illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. About 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
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