Astrium hosted a walk-about visit for Stephen McPartland at its Gunnels Wood Road site last week, following earlier visits to the company. I was delighted to be able to meet a number of the apprentices and hear what their work and training involves , sa

Astrium hosted a walk-about visit for Stephen McPartland at its Gunnels Wood Road site last week, following earlier visits to the company. "I was delighted to be able to meet a number of the apprentices and hear what their work and training involves", said Stephen, "as well as several more senior staff involved in a number of different on-going projects".

Astrium is a major employer in Stevenage, focused primarily on satellite technology, with a presence in the town stretching back many years. The company is engaged with the development of broader application of satellite technology for commercial uses as well as military and security-related, and demonstrates through a variety of different programmes the benefit from building such a deep expertise"

"Some of these applications are really exciting", said Stephen, "and there will no doubt be more to come in the future. I feel the Forest Monitoring project is particularly important as it will provide a means of early warning of de-forestation and logging activity within the rain forests. It is also an excellent example of the opportunity for exports, supplying the relevant foreign governments. Targeted aid for forest monitoring systems may also be appropriate provided commitments are made for enforcement measures to tackle the de-forestation by acting on the data provided.