Scotland’s First Minister views Scotland’s First Satellite

“The First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, took a close-up view of Scotland’s first satellite today. Clyde Space, which designed and built the UKube-1 nanosatellite, is running final tests at the company’s headquarters in the West of Scotland Science Park ahead of its deployment next month to Kazakhstan, where it will be launched in a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket later this year. Employing more than 20 highly-skilled full-time staff, Clyde Space is a leading producer of small satellite, nanosatellite and ‘CubeSat’ systems – fully-functional satellites that ‘piggy-back’ on other launches to minimise costs and boost the commercial availability of space research. The company develops and delivers products to commercial aerospace, defence companies and academic teams around the world and now plans to open a base next year in the United States – which already accounts for almost a third of its current orders.” More