"We see small satellites as the PCs of astronomy," said Stuart Eves, of Surrey Satellite Technology, an enterprise company formed in 1985 by the University of Surrey.

Just as personal computers have revolutionized information, Eves said, "the capabilities of our satellites have moved forward very rapidly over the past decade. Whilst there will always be a role for the big 'mainframe computer' satellites, which can carry the huge mirrors and complex pointing equipment needed for some astronomical experiments, small satellites can be developed very quickly and the costs are relatively modest. This means that astronomical experiments can be designed, launched and be delivering results in under two years."

Speaking at a meeting this week of the Royal Astronomical Society, Eves said SSTL already has conducted studies for ESA for a Mars sample- return mission and a Venus entry probe, but the company is now looking for ways to work with the astronomical community.

"Our satellites can now provide high-precision pointing using an automatic star camera system to determine the orientation of the platform, large amounts of on-board data storage and high data downlink rates to return the observations from the sensors as quickly as possible," he said.

"We are also now able to operate several satellites orbiting in formation and could develop small satellite constellations for experiments that need rapid responses," Eves said, citing activities such as studying gamma-ray bursts or monitoring the solar wind."

Small satellites can be particularly useful because they can carry one or two instruments economically, said Don Pollacco of Queen's University Belfast. "This means that tried and tested instruments can be launched into space to study a specific problem relatively cheaply," he explained. "It makes sense that the U.K.'s technical expertise in small satellites should be combined with the expertise of the British astronomical community."

The relatively low costs involved also mean small satellites can be funded by a single country. Canada's MOST satellite, for example, which was launched in 1993 and has carried out high-precision photometry of stars – and is known fondly by its creators as the "Humble Space Telescope" - has paved the way for a much larger contribution to astronomy from small-scale missions.

Over the past 24 years, SSTL has built and launched 26 small satellite missions into low Earth orbit for international customers worldwide. The company is known as a pioneer in the use of commercial-off-the-shelf technologies.

Recently SSTL contributed to the U.K.'s TopSat high-resolution optical surveillance satellite. It constructed and launched an Earth observation microsatellite, BEIJING-1, which carries a 4-meter ground resolution panchromatic camera in addition to a 32-meter resolution 3-band multispectral camera that can cover a 600 kilometer (372 mile) wide swath.

SSTL also recently orbited ESA's GIOVE-A navigation test satellite, which is providing the first Galileo timing and navigation signals from its 24,000 kilometer (15,000 mile) medium Earth orbit.

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