The Royal Aeronautical Society (RAES) is holding a Space Group Lecture on 24 March 2014 at the Headquarters (No. 4 Hamilton Place, London, W1J 7BQ, UK), from 18:00-20:00.
This lecture will be given by Professor Sir Martin Sweeting OBE FRS, Executive Chairman at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. All RAeS Lectures are free to attend and we welcome both Members and Non Members. To RSVP, please click the Register button on the website here. Alternatively, send your name and contact details to conference@aerosociety.com to reserve your place.
Sir Martin pioneered the concept of rapid-response, low-cost and highly-capable small satellites utilising modern terrestrial COTS devices to ‘change the economics of space’. In 1985, after building and launching the UK’s first two research microsatellites at the University of Surrey, he formed a spin-off University company (SSTL – Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd) which has now designed, built, launched and operates in orbit a total of 27 nano, micro, and mini-satellites – including the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation and the GIOVE-A Galileo satellite for ESA. Sir Martin is also Director of the Surrey Space Centre, leading a team of 60 faculty and doctoral researchers investigating advanced small satellite concepts and techniques and which acts as the research laboratory for SSTL: real academic-commercial synergy. In 1995, Sir Martin was awarded the OBE in HM Queen’s Birthday Honours and the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal – both in recognition of his pioneering work in small satellites. In 1996, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and in 2000 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (the UK’s national academy) and also awarded the Royal Society’s Mullard Prize. Sir Martin was knighted by HM Queen in the 2002 British New Year Honours for services to the small satellite industry. In 2006, he was appointed a Distinguished Professor at the University of Surrey, invited to sit on the BNSC Space Advisory Council and to join the ESA Advisory Committee on Human Spaceflight Microgravity & Exploration. Most recently, he was awarded the Royal Institute of Navigation Gold Medal in recognition of the successful GIOVE-A mission for the European Galileo system and featured in the UK’s “Top Ten Great Britons” and received the Times Higher Education Supplement Award for Innovation for the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). – See more here.
