Astrosat, the Mussel-burgh-based space technology start-up has become the first company to win two of Europe's top space prizes in the same year.
At a European Space Agency (ESA) ceremony in Munich last week, the company, founded and headed by astrophysicist Steve Lee, was awarded the Galileo Masters award for its ThermCERT GPS system which allows drivers to locate roads after heavy snowfall.
The Scottish firm also won a second award, the Copernicus Masters for WaveCERT, which uses space-based technology to plan and track investment in heating systems, a technology described as "a thermal and hyper-spectral Google Street View".
This is the second year in a row that Astrosat has scooped the Copernicus prize, another unprecedented double at the ESA awards.
Lee said: "ThermCERT's progress in one year has taken it from an idea to an extremely valuable commercial service which has big impact for users. We're proud of being good engineers who follow through on our ideas."
He added: "Among other uses, WaveCERT is intended to help tidal power companies plan and analyse the placement of their devices. The fact that a Scottish company invented a valuable service using only space technology to support clean renewable marine energy being pioneered in Scotland was much talked about in Munich."
Lee, who raised early finance for the venture by playing the guitar in pubs, paid tribute to the contribution of Scottish-based export consultancy CCG which, he said, "built our non-space commercial export network so we could focus on ESA".
"They also made major introductions that led to one of the fastest and most efficient VC [venture capital] rounds we've ever won, as well as providing exceptional strategic vision and support," he said.
Lee also thanked Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International for providing seed money for the venture "way back at the start when we had nothing but ideas".
He said: "SDI helped with early exports allowing us to have global reach and commission CCG. Without them and CCG there would have either have been no global sales or they would have come much more slowly."
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