Episode 4 – Satellites and Swarms

These days satellites are taken for granted. Most people never give a second thought to how their smartphone knows where they are located, how the City of London manages to conduct financial business across the globe, how films are streamed onto their TVs, why we can predict the weather so accurately, and so on. All depends on one or more of the thousands of satellites that now orbit the Earth and a good proportion of those artificial moons are built in the UK – many of them by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.

Today's guest is Andrew Cawthorne who is SSTL's Director of Earth Observation and Customer Training. He talks about how SSTL got started, some of their major successes and current projects, and a swathe of fascinating topics such as how satellites are powered, what might happen with the new swarms of internet satellites, space debris clearance, and much more. And you won't want to miss what he has to say about their new satellite which will circle the Moon.