The first satellite images of the flooding that devastated Tewkesbury in July are being used by the Government and by insurance and utility companies to develop response plans for future catastrophes.

Most commercial satellites cannot see through cloud and therefore are useless during extreme weather events, such as the flooding that affected England this summer.

However, Astrium, part of the European Aerospace Defence and Space (EADS) corporation, has launched a £100 million satellite capable of producing high-resolution images in all weather using radar.

The satellite, TerraSAR X, is not due to become officially active until next year, but during testing it took pictures of the Tewkesbury area of Gloucestershire in flood.

Astrium’s Infoterra division in the UK has overlaid these images, which are accurate to within three metres, on Ordnance Survey maps and aerial photographs. This has enabled the company to produce a list of every house, water station, electricity sub-station and field affected by the flood.

The technology is so new that Astrium was not able to make this information available during the emergency, but it plans to do so in similar circumstances in future. This will allow utility companies, for example, to pick out exactly which sub-stations or pylons should be checked for flood damage rather than sending engineers to all sites in the area. The hope is that selective checking of facilities will speed up repairs and reduce costs.

For insurance companies, the opportunity is to establish which policyholders have been affected without sending claims adjusters to each household. There are also potential benefits to the emergency services during such an event.

Astrium’s model can predict the exact addresses that will be affected by further rises in the water level, allowing the emergency services to concentrate rescue efforts where they are most needed.

In Tewkesbury, Astrium has calculated that if the water level had risen by a further 50cm the number of properties flooded would have doubled to 388. A 2m rise would have affected an extra 1,261 properties. This sort of modelling could allow insurance companies to calculate household premiums according to likely risk.

Astrium, which has its British headquarters in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, has started to negotiate with the Government and commercial partners to sell TerraSAR X information on either a subscription or one-off basis.

Andy Wells, the sales director of Infoterra, said: “We can now see things that have just not been available before and we think people will want access to these images. This technology will have business applications but it will also be vital for the emergency services during extreme weather events.”

Astrium was created last year from the merger of several European space projects, including the former British National Space Centre.

The pictures from TerraSAR X demonstrate how sophisticated modern satellites have become – and the diversity of their commercial uses.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, by the Soviets. Since October 4, 1957, more than 900 manmade satellites have been launched into orbit and the industry is worth an estimated $115 billion (£56.4 billion) a year.

The space industry contributes about £7 billion to the British economy and Astrium, which employs 3,000 people in this country, is the largest company operating in the sector.

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