[Satellite TODAY 10-05-11] Satellite manufacturer Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) has completed the development phase for its Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite system, NovaSAR-S, the company announced Oct. 4.

   SSTL said the system was designed to offer customers coverage of any spot on Earth in all conditions, including through cloud cover and in both day and night. The NovaSAR-S combines SSTL’s 300 platform with an S-band SAR payload developed in collaboration with Astrium , who will be responsible for supplying the payloads.

   “The challenge has been accommodating the power and processing requirements within a small, low-cost satellite platform. NovaSAR-S’s 3m x 1m phased array antenna was developed by space-borne SAR specialists at Astrium Ltd, and has now been successfully trialled using an airborne demonstrator,” SSTL said in a company statement.

The SSTL-300 platform hosting the payload is an adaptation of SSTL’s very-high-resolution imaging NigeriaSat-2 mission, which was launched in August.