SSTL Expands in New Building

Co-located with SSTL's headquarters in Guildford, the new facility provides significant new capacity that will increase throughput for multi-satellite contracts.

The 3,700sqm (40,000 sqft) facility's cleanrooms, laboratories and testing facilities will be utilised from this week replacing existing facilities on the University of Surrey campus. Satellites currently being assembled and tested in the new world-class test halls include TechDemoSat-1 and the Kazakhstan medium-resolution satellite for Astrium. Six SSTL satellite missions are scheduled for launch this year: NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X for NASRDA, KANOPUS 1 and 2 spacecraft for VNIIEM, ADS-1B for COM DEV, and SAPPHIRE for MacDonald Dettwiler Associates. The new capacity also plays an important role in SSTL's contract to supply the first fourteen Galileo Full Operational Constellation payloads in partnership with OHB Technology, which will be assembled in the secure facility.

The Kepler Building will house approximately 40 permanent staff and anything up to 100 further project specific staff from across the company at peak test and integration periods. An integral part of the new facility are the world-class test halls that provide two 125 cubic metre walk-in thermal chambers, a seismic test platform, 15,000kg and 3,200kg monorail cranes, 10,000kg and 8,000kg gantry cranes, and reinforced floors, providing the greatest possible flexibility for integration and testing of both small and larger spacecraft.