Postponing the liftoff of the nation's second satellite, ROCSAT-2, from this month to late next month had no connection to the March 20 presidential election, National Science Council (NSC) officials told legislators yesterday.
The comment came in response to a question from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kwan Yuk-noan (
"I wonder why you guys won't have the satellite launched before the election," Kwan said at a meeting held by the legislature's Sci-tech and Information Committee.
KMT Legislator Wang Chung-yu (王鍾渝) called for a report from the council about the delays and possible financial losses they might cause.
"We need details to review R&D [research and development] investments on the project and its future profits," Wang said.
Officials at the National Space Program Office (NSPO) said the launch was adjusted for purely scientific reasons.
According to Lee Lou-chuang (
"So we estimate that the launch could be scheduled between late March and early April. It has nothing to do with the presidential election," Lee said.
ROCSAT-2 was shipped to California on Dec. 1 last year, about six weeks ahead of the original launch date.
On Dec. 10, NSC officials said electrical circuit problems with the Taurus rocket, the launch vehicle, would delay the scheduled liftoff from Jan. 17 to Feb. 26.
Earlier this month, council officials said that US Orbital Sciences Corp (OSC), the operator of the Taurus vehicle, had notified them of inaccuracies in the precision equipment because of the 6.5 magnitude earthquake that shook California on Dec. 22.
OSC requested more time to fix problems with their ground apparatus and the liftoff was delayed to late next month.
Last week, NSC officials and NSPO experts visited the launch site, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, to probe the cause of the delays. They said most of the problems had been fixed and the satellite was in good condition.
NSC Deputy Minister Shieh Ching-jyh (
Lee said the OSC would have to pay US$36,500 for each day the launch was delayed based on the contract. The count began in the middle of January. Compensation, however, is limited to a maximum of US$3.6 million.
Lee said that US$14.4 million of the total launching fee of US$36 million had not yet been paid to OSC. The delay compensation will be deducted from the unpaid amount and the remainder will not be paid until ROCSAT-2 is successfully launched.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS