The British National Space Centre is funding three small satellites "to make environmental disaster monitoring faster and cheaper," Science Minister Lord Sainsbury said this week. The three projects are TOPSAT, a Defense Evaluation Research Agency-led effort to deliver low-cost, relatively high-resolution images "to local users wherever they need them;" Gemini, under which Surrey Satellite Technology, Ltd. Is to develop a low-cost geostationary satellite for telecommunications; and the Disaster Monitoring Constellation, or DMC, also from Surrey Satellite, comprising a net work of affordable micro satellites. "All three of the successful projects offer innovative ways of demonstrating small satellite technology and opening up new and attractive markets for their use," Lord Sainsbury said. "Collaborative space missions have historically been large in order to meet the research needs of many partners," he commented. "The use of constellations of small satellites can drive down the cost of access to space for government and commercial users. This will open up new services for which a space-based solution would previously have been too expensive."