The announcement comes shortly after bilateral talks were held on 2 September between Australia and the UK on measures to strengthen the economic and trade ties between the two countries.
SSTL’s decision to open an Australian office is a timely example of the kind of tighter links between UK and Australian industries that the trade talks hope to forge.
The company is a veteran within the smallsat industry, developing and building small satellites for over 40 years. They have supported more than 20 countries to develop their own sovereign space capabilities.
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SSTL has full operational in-house design and manufacturing capabilities for their smallsats, in addition to payloads subsystems and other critical equipment.
Boasting 14 current operational satellites controlled from their operations centre located in Guildford, England, as well as 40 successful launches from nine different international locations, SSTL possesses a wealth of industry experience.
Now they hope to bring that experience to Australia, with a vision to foster further development of Australian sovereign space sector capabilities.
SSTL managing director Phil Brownnett spoke about the company’s expansion to Australia.
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“We will bring our world-renowned expertise, technology and know-how to Australia to support local companies to develop sovereign capability.”
SSTL will be joining the likes of the Australian Space Agency, Fleet Space, Inovor Technologies and a range of other industry players at Lot Fourteen.
Heading up the company’s Australian operations will be Clive Oates, SSTL’s head of Five Eyes nations’ relations (an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US).
The move by SSTL to expand to Australia is indicative of the growing space industry ties between the UK and Australia since the signing of the “Space Bridge” agreement in February last year.
The announcement of the expansion was welcomed by the UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Anne Marie Trevelyan.
“Our ambitions for the development of the UK space industry are as limitless as space itself. The opening of Surrey Satellite Technology’s first office in Australia shows the real-world impact of the ‘Space Bridge’ partnership with Australia we launched last year.”
“The UK-Australia Space Bridge opens new trade, investment, research and collaboration opportunities for our space sectors,” said Trevelyan.
Liam McAneny
Liam McAneny is a journalist who has written and edited for his University International Relations journal. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (International Relations) and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Wollongong in 2021. He joined Momentum Media in 2022 and currently writes for SpaceConnect and Australian Aviation. Liam has a keen interest in geopolitics and international relations as well as astronomy.
Send Liam an email at: [email protected]
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