The Space Technology Centre at the University of Dundee was opened on March 18th by Lord Sainsbury, Undersecretary of State for Science and Technology. The Space Technology centre brings together the Satellite Receiving Station at Dundee, the Space Systems Research Group and related commercialisation activities.

Leading edge research in the fields of onboard electronic systems for spacecraft and satellite data reception, along with related teaching and commercialisation activities form the core of the Space Technology Centre. The Space Systems Research Group at Dundee has had a major influence on the design of spacecraft onboard data-handling networks having led the work on the SpaceWire network standard which is now being used on many ESA and NASA spacecraft. A spin-out company STAR-Dundee Ltd is commercialising SpaceWire technology and now has many blue chip customers across the world including ESA and NASA.

The Space Systems Research Group also does research on planetary lander systems and its PANGU planet surface simulation tool is being used by ESA, Astrium and other for research and development of planetary lander systems.

The NERC Satellite Receiving Station has been receiving satellite data since 1978. It now provides data from several satellites to environmental scientists across the UK. The Satellite Receiving Station is an important component in the UK for monitoring the Earth from space supporting many environmental research projects.

The research work of the Space Technology Centre feeds into the Electronics and Computing BSc degree programme and the Remote Sensing MSc.