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One Century After Wright Brothers, Astrium’s Skynet 5 Takes the Gold

Wright bros Hard work is worth the effort when one is rewarded and recognized by their peers; and so it goes, first the Wright Brothers, and most recently, Astrium’s Skynet 5 satellite design and manufacturing team, led by Patrick Wood, FRAeS, the Skynet 5 Project Director. This team has been recognized with two specialist awards from The Royal Aeronautical Society. Royal Aeronautical Society
  • The Gold Team Award is given in recognition of “outstanding work, which has led to substantial advances or contributions in specialist disciplines in the aerospace industry”.
 
  • The second, the Geoffrey Pardoe Space Award recognizes “significant contributions to space”.
The awards came as the result of the three Skynet 5 satellites, based on Astrium’s highly successful Eurostar E3000 communications spacecraft launched in March and November 2007 and June 2008, which complete the space segment for the UK MOD’s Skynet 5 secure communications system.  Astrium Services, through its subsidiary Paradigm Secure Communications, is responsible for the £3.6billion Skynet 5 service provision contract, which extends to 2020. It is one of the MOD’s largest and most complex PFI contracts to date. 

Skynet 5 provides end-to-end, resilient, secure beyond line-of-sight communications services, including welfare, to the UK MOD and other approved customers. Astrium Satellites is prime contractor for the satellites and the associated ground infrastructure. 

Skynet 5 heralded a new era in military communications introducing the highest power X-Band satellite in orbit. Built to support the most challenging missions the satellites are hardened to demanding NATO Standards. 

Paradigm is currently providing services to support UK MOD operations around the world. Welfare services include phone calls, text messages and e-mails between UK military personnel deployed on operations and their families at home. In addition, Paradigm is also providing services to NATO, France, Germany, Canada, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Patrick Wood On hearing of the awards, Patrick Wood, now Chief Technical Officer, Astrium Satellites, said, “It is great for the whole Skynet team to be recognized and rewarded for its remarkable achievement.  It really was a team effort – with more than 600 people involved overall, and we succeeded in getting the complete communications system fully operational on time and to cost.  It’s fantastic to think that we are following in the footsteps of the Wright Brothers, exactly 100 years later!”

The award ceremony took place Wednesday, November 5, 2008 (same day as the successful launch of the ASTRA 1M satellite, built by Astrium for SES ASTRA from Baikonur Cosmodrome), before the prestigious annual Brabazon Lecture.