This year’s event was especially memorable for SSTL, as Managing Director Andrew Cawthorne had the honour of welcoming His Excellency President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Romualdez Marcos Jr (see Main Pic) who visited the SSTL stand ahead of formally opening the Forum.
As well as the privilege of meeting the President, the Forum was a valuable opportunity to reconnect with many of the distinguished delegates, agency representatives and industry colleagues attending APRSAF-31. We were pleased to welcome a steady stream of visitors to the SSTL stand, all keen to discuss NovaSAR, our wider mission portfolio, and future collaboration opportunities across the region. Alex da Silva Curiel, pictured below, spent much of the event engaging with partners old and new - a reminder of how vibrant and outward-looking the Asia-Pacific space community has become.
A Collaborative NovaSAR Community
Alongside the main APRSAF programme, SSTL also hosted a NovaSAR Users’ Workshop, attracting partners and practitioners from across the Asia-Pacific region to share experiences, applications and future opportunities using our NovaSAR-1 radar mission - which recently celebrated its seventh year in orbit.
The workshop opened with remarks from Andrew Cawthorne, who highlighted the importance of bringing key users together to exchange insights, build collaborations and help shape the next phase of NovaSAR utilisation. Alex da Silva Curiel followed with an overview of the spacecraft’s status, confirming that NovaSAR-1 remains in excellent health with continued operations planned before handing over to our international speakers, some of whom are pictured below.
Philippines: Local Applications Making Impact - Dr John Bart Lovern Dumalag of DOST ASTI and Izrael Zenar Bautista of PhilSA demonstrated how NovaSAR-1 data is now embedded in national capability development. Examples included:
- Maritime surveillance using SAR + AIS fusion
- Aquaculture mapping
- Flood-extent and forest monitoring
- Ground-deformation studies
- Early work using AI-driven analytics
NovaSAR imagery has also supported operational disaster response mapping during national emergencies.
Australia: National Datasets and Calibration Facilities – Dr. Alex Held of CSIRO reported on their SAR calibration work, Australia-wide NovaSAR mosaics, and the hosting of collections through the National Facility Data Hub, enabling global access. Use cases included maritime security, flooding, oil-slick detection, burn-scar analysis and even iceberg tracking for Antarctic operations. (See pic below.)
Vietnam: Bilateral Research and Earth-Observation Development - Dr Nguyen detailed Vietnam’s contributions included bilateral research with CSIRO, updates on their LOTUSat-1 radar satellite, and extensive applications of radar data for rice monitoring, biomass assessments, hydrology, land subsidence and methane-emissions estimation.
United Kingdom: Science, Innovation and AI - Representing co-investor UK Space Agency (UKSA), Eva Georgiou outlined current opportunities in international space collaboration. UK partners then presented a range of NovaSAR-enabled innovations:
- Dr. Guida Raffaella of the Surrey Space Centre (University of Surrey): Illegal-fishing monitoring in Mauritius, showing a 31:1 return on investment for the community.
- Lucy Donnell of Craft Prospect: AI-based ship-detection tools designed for potential on-board deployment.
- Rob Fletcher of Airbus Defence and Space: Support for over 50 UK organisations, advanced Analysis Ready Data, and multi-sensor fusion using NovaSAR + Vision-1.
Across all presentations, the message was clear: NovaSAR-1 has become a proven and versatile tool, supporting environmental monitoring, maritime domain awareness, agriculture, disaster response and academic research throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
SSTL extends its thanks to all contributors and attendees who made the workshop such a success - and to our hosts in Cebu for a warm and generous welcome. We look forward to continuing our partnerships and helping users unlock even more value from NovaSAR-1 in the years ahead.