The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Satellite centre could reopen at new location
Dundee site monitored climate change and major weather events
An internationally-renowned satellite facility in Dundee which was recently shut down may soon reopen at a new site just outside the city.
Dundee Satellite Receiving Station, which helped monitor climate change and major weather events across Earth, was forced to close this year after losing a large chunk of its funding. It had been in operation for more than four decades.
The plight of the Dundee University facility recently featured in prominent magazine SpaceFlight.
Staff have been battling to save it and set up an online fundraiser which has so far brought in £11,000.
Station manager Neil Lonie said that although everything is still to be finalised, he is ecstatic to have established a plan for its future.
He said: “Several locations are being looked at but it will definitely be in the Dundee/Broughty Ferry area.
“It will now operate as Dundee Satellite Station Ltd and perform some commercial operations in order to keep it financially viable,” he said. “It will continue to collaborate with universities in Scotland, the rest of the UK, and around the world, though.
“We have to be incredibly careful in what we say for now, though, because it’s all pending.”
A planning application for the move is expected to be submitted imminently.
Dundee University took the decision to shut it down after the Natural Environment Research Council ended £338,000 in annual funding. The university said it had no choice because it could not make up the shortfall.
It will be operated independently from the university.