BNSCSat (British National Space Centre Satellite) or UK-DMC 1 is the UK component of DMC. The Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) is an international programme initially proposed in 1996 and led by SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd) from the United Kingdom, to construct a network of five affordable Low Earth Orbit (LEO) microsatellites. The objective is to provide a daily global imaging capability at medium resolution (30-40 m), in 3-4 spectral bands, for rapid-response disaster monitoring and mitigation. The Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) is a novel international co-operation in space, led by SSTL bringing together organisations from seven countries: Algeria, China, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. The DMC Consortium is forming the first-ever microsatellite constellation bringing remarkable Earth observation capabilities both nationally to the individual satellite owners, and internationally to benefit world-wide humanitarian aid efforts.
UK-DMC hosts a high capacity 1-Gbyte solid data recorder, a micropropulsion experiment that will qualify an ultra-low cost system for future nanosatellites and a GPS reflectometry payload to look for reflections of GPS signals from the sea surface.
UK-DMC 1 was retired in November 2011.
Instrument: MSC (Multispectral camera)
- 32-meter resolution imager in 3 spectral bands
- swath width: 600km+
