³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

On Friday 28 October, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World News Horizons series explores the future of satellite technology. Over the last fifty years, satellites have transformed our lives - helping us to navigate roads and motorways via GPS, enabling instant financial transactions around the world from trading floors to cash machines and - increasingly - providing broadband communications to remote parts of the world.

It’s an industry expected to be worth more than $600 billion per year by 2030. And as Horizons presenter, Adam Shaw, finds out - the United Kingdom is hoping to secure a big piece of that business. The goal is ever more affordable and accurate satellites. Adam visits Astrium, Europe's largest space company at its Portsmouth site, which is collaborating with the telecommunications company Avanti Communications to develop the next generation of satellites built to bring broadband to remote areas. And he discovers how the industry is planning to tackle one of its biggest problems - space junk.

Professor of Space Geodesy, Marek Ziebart, who works at University College London says, "We are at a turning point, there are huge threats to space technology, and the principle threat is space debris. In order to get these satellites up to their operational orbits, we have to launch them from the earth, and they have to pass through regions which are becoming increasingly cluttered. If we don't get a handle on space resident objects, and learn to control the environment in space, eventually we will no longer have safe access to space. We've also got new countries wanting to use space, which is good for competition, but you've got too many people trying to use a limited electromagnetic spectrum, which is the amount of space there is to actually broadcast information through the atmosphere and down to the earth."

Adam speaks to a number of experts across England including James Hinds, Project Manager for Hylas-1, EADS Astrium, David Williams, Chief Executive, Avanti, Shaun Kenyon, Mission Concepts Analyst, Surrey Satellite Technology, Sir Martin Sweeting, Chairman, Surrey Satellite Technology and Dr. Vaios Lappas, Project Leader, CubeSail.

This ten-part second series of Horizons travels across the globe to destinations including Brazil, China, USA and Israel to find out about the business ideas that could shape mankind's future.

The Horizons series, sponsored by DuPont, airs weekly on Fridays at 23:30, Saturdays at 02:30 and 15:30, and Sunday's at 9:30 and 21:30 (all times GMT). For programme highlights and an insight into the future of global business visit www.horizonsbusiness.com <http://www.horizonsbusiness.com/> . For all the latest news, behind-the-scenes pictures/videos and updates from Adam Shaw please follow at facebook.com/horizonsTVseries and/or on twitter at @horizonsbiz.

To top