Analysis [Briefing in Depth]

E&T reports from the CEAS 2009 European Air and Space Conference in Manchester, organised by the Council of European Aerospace Societies. Developments in micro-miniaturisation, packaging and power subsystems have allowed engineers to reduce the size and mass of satellites capable of accomplishing missions formerly reserved for much larger spacecraft. One example is the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), whose baseline satellites produce images of similar resolution to those of the Landsats of the 1980s (around 30m), but weigh less than 100kg rather than the 2,000kg of the Landsats.