Taiwan would seek to use Japan’s satellite services until its newest satellite, the FORMOSAT-5, can be launched later this year, Minister of Science and Technology Yang Hung-duen (楊弘敦) said on Wednesday.
Yang told a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee that the launch of FORMOSAT-5 had been delayed because of a failed rocket test in June last year by the US company commissioned to launch the satellite.
FORMOSAT-5 will not be launched until about October, Yang said, although the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) had said the launch would take place last month.
Until FORMOSAT-5 is put into service, Taiwan would rely on Japan for satellite services, Yang said.
FORMOSAT-5 was scheduled to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in the first quarter, to replace FORMOSAT-2, which has been conducting remote sensing imaging since May 2004.
However, the rocket test failure by SpaceX — the US company commissioned to launch FORMOSAT-5 — delayed its services to all its customers, including NARL.
NARL said the postponement would not have been a problem had another of the four reaction wheels on FORMOSAT-2 not failed on Tuesday last week.
With two of its reaction wheels malfunctioning, FORMOSAT-2 has not been able to perform its imaging tasks and its movements cannot be accurately controlled, said NARL, which is in charge of Taiwan’s space program.
The reaction wheels are used primarily for attitude control and are particularly useful when a spacecraft must make very small adjustments that are required, for example, to keep a telescope pointed at a star.
FORMOSAT-5, which is to carry a payload including an optical remote sensing instrument designed and developed in Taiwan, was designed to take over the remote sensing imaging mission of FORMOSAT-2.
Since Taiwan began its space program in 1991, it has sent three satellites into space.
FORMOSAT-1 was decommissioned in 2004, while FORMOSAT-2 and the weather satellite FORMOSAT-3 remain in orbit.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS