Space Technology Research Vehicle, or STRV, was a series of British

microsatellites A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. T ...

which operated in elliptical orbits around the Earth. The satellites were built by the

Defence Research Agency The Defence Research Agency (DRA) was an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) from April 1991 until April 1995. At the time, the DRA was Britain's largest science and technology organisation. In April 1995, the DRA was combined w ...

at Farnborough, for the

UK Ministry of Defence The Ministry of Defence (MOD or MoD) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for implementing the defence policy set by the government and serves as the headquarters of the British Armed Forces. ...

Mission

The series of four satellites, launched as two pairs, were designed to test new technologies in the harsh radiation environment of a geostationary transfer orbit. Each satellite had an expected 1 year life-time and carries myriad detectors, sensors and other equipment for a variety of organisations including the UK MoD, ESA and the US Department of Defense. The satellites were controlled from the DRA groundstation at Lasham in the UK. Several of the STRV satellites' experiments also recorded proton and electron data as they repeatedly passed through the

Van Allen Belts The Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energy, energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetosphere. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes ot ...

Payloads

Two satellites were launched in June 1994 and another two were launched in November 2000, from the space center in

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

STRV 1A & 1B

STRV 1A and STRV 1B are cube-shaped micro-satellites each with a mass of 50 kg. They were launched into orbit to test new solar cells and measure static charge on its surfaces.

STRV 1C & 1D

STRV 1C and STRV 1D are cube-shaped micro-satellite each with a mass of 100 kg and carry test technology devices including

lithium ion A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energy d ...

batteries and a

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

receiver.

References

Space programme of the United Kingdom Satellites of the United Kingdom {{UK-spacecraft-stub