SSTL has commenced building a small satellite for the Republic of Kazakhstan that will provide medium resolution multi-spectral earth observation capability to complement the high resolution satellite that is being provided by EADS Astrium as part of the contract awarded to the company in October 2009.

The Republic of Kazakhstan is utilising the latest Earth Observation (EO) satellite technologies from EADS Astrium and its subsidiary SSTL to create a national system which will support its government with resource monitoring, resource management, land-use mapping and environmental monitoring information for policy and decision making.

The Medium Resolution Earth Observation Satellite (MRES) project highlights how systems from the two EADS Group companies can be deployed together to provide integrated multi-satellite space systems.

The new EO system will include a high resolution mapping spacecraft and a wide-swath medium resolution multispectral mapping spacecraft implemented by a team comprising Astrium and SSTL.

SSTL CEO Matt Perkins commented: "This project illustrates the benefit of SSTL being part of the EADS Astrium group - the solutions that the Group now offers draw upon the heritage of both companies to provide real benefits to our customers."

The SSTL MRES satellite will deliver wide swath multispectral imagery of the Kazakh territory and other parts of the Earth.

It will weigh less than 200 kg and have the capability to image and downlink one million square kilometres per day, with exceptionally agile off-pointing capabilities for this class of satellite.

SSTL will deliver the MRES satellite within a 3 year timeframe which includes a comprehensive training and development element, by building upon its heritage designs from its successful SSTL-150 class missions such as TopSat, DMC+4, CFESat and the RapidEye constellation of 5 spacecraft.

Kazakhstan's MRES system will also incorporate advanced new technologies that have been developed for the NigeriaSat-2 satellite that include enhanced data handling and downlink capabilities.