On Saturday 28th April 2001, Jim Grozier organised a trip to the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford. I went with my mum, who is currently studying S281, an astronomy course with the OU. Our guide was Dr. Craig Underwood. In the Space Centre, they make satellites, many of them are still in operation, circling the earth.

There are several things that they bear in mind when designing satellites at Surrey:

• Low cost - under £1,000,000
• Rapid response - has to be built within a year. (It takes a team of about 30 multitask people to build a satellite in that time).
• Capability - it has to carry out a useful function.
• Long life - it has to last at least ten years (one is still functioning effectively after 16 years).
• The overall aim is Affordable Access to Space.

They specialise in lightweight satellites, for example one was only 6.5 kg - you could hold it in your hand. They are attached to other rockets and/or satellites to be launched into space.

A lot of space debris has become a great danger in Space. In July 1996, a collision occurred between Surrey Space Centre's Cerise and Ariane's debris. They were both travelling towards each other at 7.5 million metres per second at the time!

Their mission control room is completely unmanned. Although engineers check up on it now and then, retrieve data, etc., if there's trouble with a satellite, it text messages the engineer's mobile phone!

In the clean room, Picosat, a real satellite, is going up into space soon, and it stood there, right before our eyes! I couldn't believe that I had actually seen a real satellite. This one is 50 kg.

This is only a small part of the information gleaned from our really interesting two hour talk and half hour tour. If you would like more information about Surrey's Space Centre and their satellites, please visit their website at www.sstl.co.uk.