TechDemoSat-1: Launched 2014
UK industry and academia worked together with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) on a new innovative satellite to trial UK space technologies and provide an ‘in-orbit test facility’ for innovative UK payloads and software.
At around one meter cubed (roughly the size of a washing machine) and a surprisingly light mass of around 150kg, TechDemoSat (TDS-1) carried eight payloads plus a mixture of heritage and new product development systems from SSTL.
In May 2019, TechDemoSat-1 reached the end of its mission life and a drag sail supplied by Cranfield University was deployed to increase the rate of orbital decay.
