The award was presented at ESA’s Industry Space Days at ESTEC in the Netherlands on 16 September, with SSTL Project Director Andrew Haslehurst, Senior Project Manager Pete Garner & Senior Systems Engineer Lily Rose (in pic above with ESA Director Christine Klein) accepting it on behalf of the HydroGNSS project team.
ESA’s annual awards recognise companies which have made an exceptional contribution to its programmes, with nominations drawing on detailed project evaluations and feedback from the ESA teams working directly with suppliers.
For HydroGNSS, ESA particularly highlighted the team’s response to a demanding programme schedule, including the additional work needed following a late change in launch service, and the commitment shown in keeping the mission on track.
Andrew Haslehurst said: “HydroGNSS has been a brilliant team effort from the outset, so it was a real pleasure to accept this award on behalf of everyone who has played a part in the mission. We’re enormously proud of what the team has achieved, and of how HydroGNSS has shown that a small satellite approach can deliver genuinely valuable science. Recognition like this from ESA makes it all the more special.”
HydroGNSS is ESA’s first Earth Observation Scout mission, part of its FutureEO programme. The two SSTL-built satellites were launched in November 2025 and use signals from GPS and Galileo satellites reflected from the Earth’s surface to gather information about soil moisture, wetlands and inundation, freeze-thaw conditions and above-ground biomass.
The Scout programme was created around a deliberately different model for Earth observation: smaller satellites, shorter development times and tightly controlled budgets, while still delivering useful and innovative science alongside ESA’s larger Earth Explorer missions.
It is an approach that sits rather comfortably with the way SSTL has been building spacecraft for more than four decades.
And, for the HydroGNSS team, a rather nice piece of recognition for a small satellite mission doing some very serious science.