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Martin Sweeting

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Martin Sweeting
OBE, FRS, FREng, FIET, FRAeS, FBIS, MIAA
Martin Sweeting and Wu Shuang sign a Cooperation Agreement for a Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation in 2011
Born (1951-03-12) March 12, 1951 (age 73)[1]
Alma materUniversity of Surrey
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisThe communications efficiency of electrically short aerials (1979)
Websitewww.surrey.ac.uk/ssc/people/martin_sweeting/

Sir Martin Nicholas Sweeting, OBE, FRS,[2] FREng, FIET, FRAeS, FBIS, MIAA (born 12 March 1951) is the founder and executive chairman of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL).[3] SSTL is a corporate spin-off from the University of Surrey, where Sweeting is a Distinguished Professor who founded and chairs the Surrey Space Centre.[4]

Education

Sweeting was educated at Aldenham School and the University of Surrey, completing a Bachelor of Science degree in 1974[1] followed by a PhD in 1979 on shortwave antennas.[5]

Career and research

With a team he created UoSAT-1, the first modern 70 kg (150 lb) 'microsatellite,' which he convinced the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to launch, as a secondary piggyback payload into Low Earth orbit alongside a larger primary payload. This satellite and its successors used amateur radio bands to communicate with a ground station on the University campus. During the 1980s Sweeting took research funding to develop this new small-satellite concept further to cover possible applications such as remote sensing, and grew a small satellites research group that launched a number of later satellites. This led to the formation of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd in 1985, with four employees and a starting capital of just £100,[6] and to a know-how technology transfer program, introducing space technologies to other countries. SSTL was later spun off from the University and sold to Astrium in 2009 for a larger sum.[quantify]

Awards and honours

In 2000 Sweeting was awarded the Mullard Award by the Royal Society and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in the same year.[2] In recognition of his pioneering work on cost-effective spacecraft engineering, Sweeting was knighted in 2002. In 2006 he received the Times Higher Education Supplement Award for Innovation for the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC).[7] In 2008 he was awarded the Royal Institute of Navigation Gold Medal[citation needed] for the successful GIOVE-A mission for the European Galileo system, awarded the Sir Arthur Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award,[citation needed] and named as one of the "Top Ten Great Britons."[by whom?] In 2009 he was awarded the Faraday Medal by the Institute of Engineering and Technology,[citation needed] and an Elektra Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Electronics Industry. In 2014, the Chinese Academy of Sciences award.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b SWEETING. "SWEETING, Prof. Sir Martin (Nicholas)". Who's Who. Vol. 1998 (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |othernames= ignored (help) (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b Anon (2000). "Professor Sir OBE FREng FRS". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at the Wayback Machine (archived September 25, 2015)
  3. ^ Guildford's SSTL leads world in small satellite supply, Clive Cookson, Financial Times, 12 June 2015.
  4. ^ "Guildford Roll of Honour | University of Surrey - Guildford". Surrey.ac.uk. Retrieved 2016-02-26.
  5. ^ Sweeting, Martin Nicholas (1979). The communications efficiency of electrically short aerials (PhD thesis). University of Surrey. OCLC 500574846.
  6. ^ Britain's spaceman, The Economist Technology Quarterly Q2 2015, 30 May 2015.
  7. ^ "Times Higher Awards, SSTL innovation". 2006.
  8. ^ "Professor Sir Martin Sweeting scoops Space Research award | University of Surrey - Guildford". Surrey.ac.uk. 2014-08-06. Retrieved 2016-02-26.
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