Satellite Data and Planetary Ecology
by Dr. Matjaz Vidmar from University of Edinburgh

Aberdeen Astronomical Society, 11th April 2023

“Scotland is the complete package”

The Speaker     5/5

• Mat spoke with great passion and energy, to present a clear, informative and fast-paced overview of satellite technology and Scotland’s place in both research and application
• very receptive to questions and even returned to answer more after the break
• broad experience in the field but specialist in data collection and processing

The Topic          5/5

• 3 categories: time-signal satellites for GPS services; communication (internet still predominantly undersea cables); and broadcasting (quite an array looking back at Earth)
• data acquired shows changes on Earth and plays a significant role in understanding global warming effects, pollution, flood risks and even poorly insulated housing
• interesting slides illustrating hardware, data samples and range of Scottish companies involved (felt very proud)

Most interesting points   5/5

• Scotland is developing 4 small launch sites (Shetland, Orkney, Sutherland/Forres, Prestwick Airport) and is already second only to the US in the satellite arena
• Glasgow-Edinburgh-Dundee constitutes an integrated hub providing the whole package (creating and launching satellites and collecting data) as required by all manner of institutions and companies
• impressive collaboration between the universities and numerous Scottish businesses
• very pleasing that sustainability is at the heart of the industry
• ideas to deal with space debris being floated; great concept = recycling station in geostationary orbit to collect, repair, recycle and remove – we shall see!
• further to success with LIGO detector, ongoing LISA project using 3 laser detector satellites to increase sensitivity to gravitational waves

Let’s hope we can have Mat over to give SIGMA a talk soon!!!

Editors note: Matjaz has given talks to SIGMA – his last talk is available on our YouTube channel.