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In this bonus episode, we’re discussing the IOD-3 Amber satellite. Amber is a partnership between the Satellite Applications Catapult and Horizon Technologies. Built by AAC Clyde Space in Scotland, it will be launched by Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne on its historic flight from Spaceport Cornwall later this year – a mission that will mark the first ever orbital launch from a UK spaceport.
Welcome to In-Orbit, the fortnightly podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 0:07
Welcome to In-Orbit. The podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world, brought to you by the Satellite Applications Catapult. I'm your host, Mike Curtis-Rouse, head of access to space at the catapult and in this series we'll be in conversation with some of the most inspiring minds in the country, exploring the ways that the UK is using space to make huge differences to our everyday lives, as well as gaining a better understanding of its role in shaping and sustaining our planet for the future. In today's bonus episode, we're discussing the AMBER satellite. AMBER was a partnership between the Satellite Applications Catapult and Horizon Technologies. Built by AAC cloud space in Scotland, it will be launched by Virgin Orbit's Launcher One on its historic flight from spaceport Cornwall later this year, a mission that will mark the first-ever orbital launch from a UK spaceport. I'm joined in the studio by Nick Marshall, project manager of AMBER at the Satellite Applications Catapult and remotely from London by John Beckner, CEO of Horizon Technologies, and from the International Astronautical Congress in Paris, Peter Anderson, Chief Commercial Officer at AAC Clyde Space, AMBER is expected to be the first of constellation satellites to provide maritime domain awareness data to users. Using unique patented technology, the system will geolocate and demodulate radiofrequency data from ships around the world, including listening to the presence or the absence of a ship's Automatic Identification System, also known as AIS. AMBER forms part of the Satellite Applications Catapult In-Orbit Demonstration Programme, also known as ID. The In-Orbit Demonstration Programme offers partners a fast-track, low-cost opportunity to test our service or technology on a CubeSat mission launched into low Earth orbit. It helps to accelerate the proof of concept stage by providing an affordable in-orbit testbed and a range of operational business and support services to exploit the commercial potential of the mission. Peter, John, Nick, fabulous to have you here, fabulous to be in a conversation. Let's have a great conversation talking about AMBER, In-Orbit demonstration and hopefully getting it on board the first launch out of the UK into space out of the UK spaceport on a UK launch vehicle with a UK-built satellite. Can I say that? Peter, a UK-built satellite or do you want to say a Scottish-built satellite? What's your preference?
Peter Anderson 2:32
No, no, no, it is a UK-built satellite in Scotland, but it is UK-built.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 2:38
A UK-built satellite into space and a whole bunch of historic firsts. So before we go really into the technical detail, John, could you just introduce yourself? And just give us a little bit of a preamble of who you are, what your background is, what your interests are? Let's stick with space for now and maybe not go any wider than that.
John Beckner 2:58
Yeah, no, my pleasure. John Beckner. I'm the CEO of Horizon Technologies. After I left I used to work in Washington for the US government, I was working for a number of congressmen on the Armed Services Committee, moved to Europe in my 20s and was basically a consultant to major aerospace companies, British Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, I was a consultant. In about 2012 I had this idea when the piracy was going on in eastern Africa. How do you find pirates at sea? and I had this concept of a dual-use commercial box, a line replaceable unit to go on aircraft to find pirates. We call it Flying Fish and that technology was UK technology out of L3Harris in Tewkesbury and the Flying Fish developed into the concept of AMBER in terms of let's put that payload that hunts pirates and saves refugees, onto a CubeSat and that's how I got introduced to the space business. Originally, we had a relationship with Spire, that didn't really go anywhere. But we came from, well me personally, I came from a consultant to a startup which had an aerospace business and still does, into a company that's going to really turn into a space company, a space-based data company, I should say and that's where we got started, I could talk about the IOD programme, but I'll defer to you on questions or if you want me to get into more detail on that.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 4:33
Thanks, John. So we're talking Flying Fish turning into maybe Space Fish, but maybe let's not call it Space Fish we'll stick with AMBER. Before we get into the details on AMBER, Peter, we wouldn't have AMBER and we wouldn't be able to put AMBER in space without having the spacecraft. So we're talking two parts to the spacecraft. We're talking the payload, which is fundamentally the Flying Fish but the Space Fish component, and we'll go back to John on that in a moment, and then of course, we'll talk about the spacecraft which does everything else. Peter, can you just give a quick introduction to yourself, your background and your involvement here?
Peter Anderson 5:06
Yes, of course and thank you very much for having me along today. So my name is Peter Anderson. I'm the Chief Commercial Officer of AAC Clyde Space. AAC Clyde Space is an international company nowadays. I think back to when we first started cooperating on the In-Orbit demonstration programme, we were simply Clyde Space Limited, a company based up in Glasgow, but we've grown now as part of an acquisition. Actually, we're now technically a Swedish company and we have six sites globally. We offer three things to the market, we do a range of different products for spacecraft up to 500-kilogramme spacecraft, we can service in real terms, probably more than that but certainly, it does start to taper off. We offer space missions. Again, this is actually where and I'm sure I hope we get to touch on this later on is one of the advantages we've taken from the Satellite Applications Catapult In-Orbit programme, which we have supported for some time. You know, we have grown our capability to deliver spacecraft to orbit as well and operate them but all built around our Nano Sat range that 1 to 50-kilogramme window, and finally, and much more recently, we've started taking our own spacecraft and delivering data to the market. But that's predominantly around environmental blue-economy type applications and one of our acquisitions recently was of a weather science payload company as part of that.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 6:19
Thanks, Peter. So that's two of the big chunks of it and the kind of the third chunk of well we've got a spacecraft and we've got a payload is putting it all together and the complexities of that fall to the Satellite Applications Catapult, my organisation, but also Nick Marshall's organisation. Nick, you are effectively trying to pull together this band of brothers, band of sisters, band of space professionals into trying to make this a viable project and actually achieve success. Can you just give a little bit of introduction again to your background and your role in AMBER and IOD 3?
Nick Marshall 6:54
Yeah, sure and Mike, thank you very much, Peter and John, it's a pleasure to be here with you today and to be in a slightly different environment to the day-to-day work that we've been doing over the past period trying to get our, collective our, satellite to orbit and what an exciting moment we exist in. We're just like Peter said, the industry has changed, the world is changing. We're quick to orbit, we're dealing with Nano SATs and moving away from the old space very much into the new space and Mike, like you say the challenges day to day for me in the project management team have been how can we do this in an agile and professional way, as quickly and as cleanly and effectively as we possibly can. So I'm a project manager, been with the Catapult for 18 months, and I have a defence and military-technical background. But really the application in this project has been, let's get this organised. Let's get this flying and we're almost there.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 7:55
Thanks, Nick. So let's get into the depth of this. So John, can you tell us what AMBER is, you've told us already, in some respects is Flying Fish. I'm not going to call it Space Fish. I'm going to leave that there. So can you tell us about AMBER? What's AMBER going to do? What's its purpose?
John Beckner 8:14
You know, so AMBER is a data service, so it's data. We're going to, you know, we will eventually operate a constellation of satellites. But our view really is, it's a data service and it's a data service for maritime domain awareness. We didn't want to get all the RF spectrum. We said, listen, our products are primarily used in a maritime environment and so what we did is we said, let's look at the dark ship product problem, where ships turn off their AIS and let's try to identify vessels non-cooperatively. If they have AIS on, they're cooperating with the network. So let's look if they're using satphones on ships, let's look if they're using L-band data links on ships, okay and we want to get GPS positions out of those data streams. When we bid for the IOD programme, we can talk about that a little bit. We did say you know what, we can also detect ships' radars, it's a different frequency, but they're not that much different. So, we expanded the idea of the Flying Fish and actually, we said let's look at ships, radars as well and we partnered with a little company in Portsmouth called ISRO. It's the Royal Navy supplier of some of their ESM Electronic Support Measures Software and ISRO is still our partner, we use that ISRO software to decode the signals that come down from the AMBER satellite. So AMBER is the name of the satellite, but it's also the name of the data service and our market is certainly the Royal Navy, the joint maritime security centre based in Portsmouth they will be the first recipient of data once the data is flowing, but it is a data product that will be immediately marketed worldwide, the Five-Eyes community will immediately have access to it with our permission in Portsmouth and as I tell people, our market is the Bahamas Coast Guard all the way to, you know, the United States NRO and these NGA and these big, big intelligence organisations. So we think this data is unique and as we say, we demodulate the data, we're not doing just RF mapping, we're getting you the manufacturer of the radar if we pick up the right signals, we're getting you the actual location of, say, a pirate on his satellite phone calling to find out what's in the target, we're getting that accuracy down to four metres. So it's very unique data and the market is worldwide and the IOD programme, for us has been the linchpin of getting that data service and that satellite into space.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 11:01
Thanks, John. It's interesting, you talk about data because Peter, you were talking about one of the product offerings of ACC Clyde, in terms of you build spacecraft, that's your background, that's where you came from. But increasingly, you're seeing data as a product, as a new offering.
Peter Anderson 11:16
So it's a couple of different things really, under one banner, it's certainly in reaction to new space becoming much more established market. You know, there's the competition is increasing, it is certainly facing a certain level of commoditisation and as an organisation, we kind of look to where we can add value to our customers' missions and in certain cases, we can do this in partnership and this is space state as a service, as a partnership in its initial forms and this is where actually our group own the assets, and we take on the burden of the ownership, this is you know, licencing, insurance, etc., and we then sell and this we ultimately lease the spacecraft back to the customer, and allow them to take the data and to monetise it. Now we do this for some pretty well-established verticals just now, you know, so relatively low-risk for us. So things like Earth observation, AIS as an actual data set and of itself, rather than how John uses it. We will see in the future is the group will expand and start to offer sort of more commercialised and productised datasets that will come in time and that will be around, as we said before the blue economy, and the environment, etc., and really, that's based on our heritage of working, and again, it will be firmly done in partnership.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 12:31
Thanks, Nick, we've touched a little bit on new space and new space is something where the Catapults really beginning to operate. This is very much our domain and somewhere we're empowering. From your perspective, how's the journey been in terms of what does AMBER represent in terms of the new space journey and where do you see those opportunities building both from a Catapult and obviously from a wider perspective, including the UK?
Nick Marshall 12:54
Yeah, great question, Mike. So I sit here with a level of enthusiasm for what we're doing, but also what it means to do this day to day. So you asked me about new space and for me, it's really how we got here and what the opportunities are that present themselves now in a programme such as the In-Orbit Demonstration Programme. So John, we take your business as an example, we're very proud to be working in partnership with you to put this into orbit, but it really has opened the doors for those industries that haven't, and organisations that haven't necessarily had access to space as a market. Now, new space for me is really opening the floodgates and opening the doors to those who perhaps didn't have access to now having the opportunity to fly a Space Fish or a Flying Fish or whatever it is, you want to fly. But really to do it with one eye on the future, what does this mean for new spaces in the industry? And I think if we do it well, and we do it sustainably, we do it correctly and we do it efficiently, we can really be leaders in offering such opportunities for companies such as Horizon to fly their assets. Now, what happens next? It's very exciting. Anything can happen. But really this for me isn't just an opportunity to showcase what AIS sensing opportunities there are from low earth orbit, but it's really how we can get a NANO Sat quickly to orbit with a customer's payload that has had access to this in orbit demonstration opportunity, do it well, do it quickly and open up more opportunities for future development.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 14:47
Thanks Nick, a lot of key points in there. Peter just want to pivot back to you a little bit there. Clyde's heritage has been in building small satellites from really small satellites to significantly larger ones. The opportunities are that there are in terms of building satellites, well, building them faster, as Nick's alluded to, getting them into orbit faster, which from John's perspective and other companies, getting things into space fast is important. What are the opportunities for the UK in terms of satellite manufacture and satellite growth? Is it about building satellites? Or was it a bit more holistic? Is it involving all these other services that you mentioned in your preamble?
Peter Anderson 15:25
Yeah, I think you can, just picking up what Nick was saying, I think the sustainability piece is actually a really important aspect of where the UK can actually see some really excellent growth space and become busy, and it's going to get busier. I think being able to build spacecraft quicker and faster and more effectively, while not losing any of the hallmarks of what a British product tends to be, which is top quality, then I think that that is also incredibly important for us to market is a pressure that companies are going to increasingly come under, you know, and especially as this market becomes more and more commercial. So the UK then sits there and can add value across the value chain. The UK launch aspect of this particular mission, has been a missing piece of the puzzle, to really tie the whole thing together to allow us to be responsive, to allow us to really drive forward and deliver really novel applications and small satellites and of themselves are the enablers, because ultimately space is difficult, space can be expensive and actually been able to do it on a smaller form factor just opens the door considerably more.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 16:30
And that's interesting. Thank you. John, why small satellites? Why not fly AMBER on one of the megaton spacecraft? Why is IOD, In-Orbit Demonstration good for this? Can you just share a little bit of your kind of view and your thoughts on that?
John Beckner 16:46
Well, if I look back, actually, we'd won an Innovate UK grant for a generic ground station or data centre for in those days was going to be our payload or part of it on SPIRE satellites on Spiral and newer satellites and this is true, I heard about the IOD programme on LinkedIn, I saw it on LinkedIn and it was I think, in early 2019 and I said, "look at this" to my guys, and there's few of us, it's a seven-man company. I said, "Look at this thing. There's a programme we can get a payload on a small satellite". And it was actually if you guys remember, it was a 3U. It was a 3U just like Spire was in those days. So my guys go, "Hey, John, we just got this Innovate UK thing, we really need to get this ground safe", I go "no, no, no, we can write this bid". And we wrote the bid and then there became a process of presenting and downselecting. But we went into this going, "hey, this is neat". We want, you know, we were bitten with the space bug and then I got a call from the catapult and they say, "hey, you've been selected, but only if you agree to go to a 6U, not a 3U? I said "Yes! Yeah, 6, 12 I don't care, whatever!" So we enthusiastically jumped into this thing and it is a way for a small company to get into space. Look, COVID hit us and I was blithely saying, hey, it's not that big of a deal, we move on. It was a big deal. We couldn't do in-person meetings. It slowed us down. We made the best of it. But we couldn't have done it without the catapult and that's the issue here. It's a very complex, small, little satellite. It's very complex. As we've all learned, however, we need the catapult to guide us through this. We don't know anything about space. Well, we're learning now over the past couple of years, that's for sure. But really, we needed people to introduce us to people like in Clyde Space. We didn't know these people and really, the whole idea of that thing was based on the IOD programme, and it's been incredible. We've learned so much, it's taken a while to get into space. But that being said, this is a highly complex, small satellite. Everyone on this call will agree with that. It's a highly complex satellite and can't wait to get it up. But without the teamwork of Clyde Space, managing the bus for us and the catapult managing the whole programme, steering us in the right direction, we wouldn't be where we are today.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 19:18
Absolutely, John. I mean, it's been an exciting and I mean, it's been challenging, and it's been a complex journey so far and I think everyone would agree without a doubt that it's one of probably the most sophisticated, small satellites and it's one of those challenges about if you make a small satellite, it doesn't reduce its complexity and if anything, it actually increases the complexity. You're trying to do more with less and that's not just in terms of the volume you have in terms of a small satellite. It's also with the reduced power budget, the challenges of the space environment, and a whole host of other factors. But notwithstanding Horizon, basically delivering the payload and Clyde Space building the actual bus, there's been other partners involved. Nick, we've got a whole host of different organisations supporting us, right across the UK ecosystem. Can you just talk about briefly just some of those other organisations involved who are helping make this a success?
Nick Marshall 20:11
Yeah, sure, Mike, it's an incredibly valid point there because the Satellite Applications Catapult whilst we do retain some experience and knowledge within our ranks, we have gone out to market for a number of subcontracts which have brought in external help and experience and industry-leading experience too. If we consider end to end, the satellite in orbit, let's say, from a ground station perspective, we've brought on Goonhilly. Now Goonhilly Earth Station is the UK's foremost... at the forefront of ground station communications. In fact, whilst we sit here recording this podcast, Goonhilly are gearing up to track our NASA Artemis 1 mission. I say our, as humankind's voyage back to the moon.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 21:03
I was thinking Nick, suddenly, we've pivoted there and then we've suddenly inherited the entire space launch system. That'd be great!
Nick Marshall 21:09
That will be a whole host of different work, wouldn't it?
Mike Curtis-Rouse 21:11
Let's stick with IOD3 and AMBER, we'll get that into space and then we might consider a little bit bigger next time.
Nick Marshall 21:16
We've developed an exceptional working relationship with Goonhilly station as one example. We've, as the catapult, have an asset which is one of our antennas down there, GHY 99, which is a small fry antenna when you compare it to the big boys of GH1 and GH6, which are currently in communication with LRO or even Deep Space Network off to Mars, I digress. If we look across the project, we brought in Craft Prospects. Craft Prospects are fellow Glaswegians, colleagues and some ex-colleagues of our colleagues at Clyde Space, but Craft Prospects have been assisting us with writing the flight operations procedures. We've worked with education, so the University of Strathclyde, in developing our satellite in a suitcase for testing. Right across the board we've engaged with UK business and industry in bringing core aspects of this project together to enhance what we can offer our, we say customers but partners really, such as Horizon in this In-Orbit Demonstration Program. So Mike, I can answer your question that yeah, there's lots of people that we've been working with.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 22:27
And that's very much really the story of IOD3. IOD3 isn't just a one, effectively spacecraft with one payload and one organisation in terms of the Satellite Applications Catapult facilitating it. It's a whole host of different organisations and I think that elucidates very much to the UK's strength and capability in terms of innovation, in manufacturing, ground segment operations and frankly, some of the times when I look at the complexities of IOD3. it's both the ingenuity and the determination to get there, and that's not clearly withstanding the developments that L3Harris have worked on in terms of the payload John as well, because your supply chain goes beyond the UK, for AMBER, and you have partners across the world. So getting here has been very much a global journey, as much as it has been a UK journey. John, where is AMBER going to go? What does this mean? We get AMBER into orbit, the satellite operates, we start identifying those dark ships, I love that phrase. What does it mean next? Where does this take Horizon? Where does it take AMBER?
John Beckner 23:32
Great question and you know what it did Lloyd George say, a small journey starts with small steps. We have a goal of putting up 24 AMBER Cube Sats, okay, they may go to a bigger, maybe a bigger spacecraft. So the Royal Navy, when we started talking to them originally, they said, "We need data worldwide, some time in less than an hour, these ships don't move that fast". And that latency window now has come down to we need data in Portsmouth in 30 minutes or less. So we'd originally thought well, all we need is six cube sats and the right orbital planes and we'll meet that requirement. Well now the requirement when it's 30 minutes or less, and this could change because with the new technologies and getting data to the earth, you can get data down a lot faster, so we're looking at 24 satellites now and that gives us four satellites and six orbital planes and that meets their requirements. Now that's the Royal Navy requirement. There's going to be others who have different requirements, maybe not as stringent but our goal is to get these satellites up there. Get that network going. Actually, as a UK company, we're going to try to move the technology into the UK. We're very heavily dependent upon Innovate UK, we're applying for grants, applying for loans. We really don't want to be dependent on a US supplier although I'm an American. Our goal really is to make this completely, a UK product and I get tremendous support internationally by the Department of International Trade, by UK High Commissions, embassies around the world. But the goal really is we are a data company, we need to get more satellites in orbit and then the other piece to that is the analytics piece. We need to start doing more with the data. Now does that mean we partner with someone? Probably in the beginning, we do that, with seven people, not a big data analytics department right now. So basically, we're going to start with partnering with someone probably and then start expanding that up, and really starting to do some of the analytics. Where does the ship go when we didn't see it? Can we get another provider up there to get an EO picture of the vessel? Is there someone with a Synthetic Aperture Radar, a SAR radar up in space that can image that dot that was a very strange transmission in the middle of the ocean with no AIS? So again, the goal is and hopefully, certainly with Clyde Space, our partner, our goal is to get more satellites built, launched, improve the payload, bring that technology all to the UK, and start providing various data sets to customers around the world, starting with the UK with the JMSC.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 26:18
Thanks, John. Just a quick soundbite from each of you basically on the significance of being onboard the UK's first rocket launch out of a UK spaceport, a horizontal rocket launch in this case with Virgin Orbit. What does it mean, Peter for you first of all, what does this mean for you and for Clyde Space?
Peter Anderson 26:36
For a company like ours, and we've launched across eight or nine different launch vehicles in our time, having this available on our doorstep, so to speak, and to really close the loop on the full value chain is immensely important. Now in many cases, logistically, it may not give us the advantage in that particular regards. However, when it comes to actually being able to provide secure missions, resilience missions and responsive missions, it actually becomes incredibly important. The UK has also got a very healthy approach to UK launch and actually, it will become very commercially viable in the short term, in that it will be completed, there will be multiple sites and will be multiple options and that will in itself, allow it as the industry always has done to grow successfully and it's just going to be more export opportunity for the country as well, more jobs, and I think it also makes the UK just a really exciting place to come and do business, as a space company and to invest because the ecosystems are so clear.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 27:34
Thanks, Peter. John, the historic significance for Horizon?
John Beckner 27:39
I think it's clear, we're a UK company, we get to participate in the first UK launch. I think we've expanded the envelope of IOD3 in many ways and this is one way we expanded it and in fact, the fact that Virgin Orbit will be launching this launch from Cornwall later this year and we're going to be part of it, I think is win-win for everyone that's part of our ecosystem right now. It really is and it really shines the light on UK space technology, small companies and cutting-edge technologies. I think the fact that we're going to be on Virgin's start-me-up launch, I think we can say that now, I think is really, I think is really going to be very important. So for us, tremendously important.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 28:24
Thanks, John. Finally, Nick, from a catapult perspective and coming to the end of IOD3, how does this relate to you?
Nick Marshall 28:32
So as a child Mike, going to the Isle of Wight and having a look at the old Black Knight Rocket test stands and imagining what could have been certainly before my lifetime, with the UK rocket industry and to now find myself in a position where like Peter said that we're closing the loop. We're bringing it back home. Now we're not going to compete, with the SpaceX of the world. But we're going to finish something that we started a long time ago. And that is...
Mike Curtis-Rouse 29:02
And start something else perhaps.
Nick Marshall 29:04
Absolutely and start something else. So we've been market leaders in satellite technology for a number of years, you know, we've got a lot of talent and ability and capacity and capability in this country. Let's include the launch in that statement, whether it's horizontal, whether it's vertical. We're at the first spaceport, the first UK launch out of UK soil, of a UK satellite, it's the start of something new that we should have done a long time ago. So for me, we're right where we should be.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 29:37
So realistically, thank you Nick, for all of us, we're closing the loop. We're closing that loop for the UK ecosystem. We're closing the loop for bringing together the key tenets in terms of what the UK can offer, from manufacturing and innovation, data management, ground segment operations and integration and we're bringing as you said Nick, it's not the end of the story, it's the start of a new chapter. We're opening it up and we're really saying, at this point, the sky isn't the limit. Maybe the stars are, but IOD3, and AMBER and all the various components that bring that together collectively, are allowing us to basically start a new chapter for you post-space.
Nick Marshall 30:14
Absolutely.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 30:15
Peter, John, Nick, the three of you. Thank you very much for participating in this podcast. We're looking forward to seeing some really exciting things to come. I know we all have our fingers crossed in many, many ways. Looking forward to seeing the success of IOD3, looking forward to seeing the successful operation of the AMBER payload and looking forward to, John, seeing the growth of that 24 spacecraft constellation in the near future. Thank you all very much.
Nick Marshall 30:43
Thank you.
John Beckner 30:44
Thank you very much. I'm happy to be part of this.
Peter Anderson 30:47
Thank you.
Mike Curtis-Rouse 30:50
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