The Australian government on Monday said that it had approved an application from Taiwan Innovative Space (TiSPACE) to launch its Hapith I sounding rocket, while the National Space Organization (NSPO) again postponed its launch service contract with the company.
“Taiwanese company TiSPACE will conduct a test flight of its Hapith I — a 10m, two-stage, sub-orbital rocket — from the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex, which is operated by Southern Launch,” Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Christian Porter said in a statement. “The date for the launch will be determined by TiSPACE and Southern Launch in the coming months. TiSPACE is also currently considering bringing manufacturing of complete rocket systems to Australia.”
After TiSPACE’s plans to launch the rocket in Taitung County between late 2019 and early last year were suspended due to controversy over the legitimacy of its use of the land, company personnel in February visited Australia to search for launch opportunities, the Taipei Times reported in May.
Photo: CNA
While TiSPACE has vowed to become Taiwan’s first commercial launch service provider, it has not yet proved its rocket technology.
Aside from demonstrating its launch capability, TiSPACE has to fulfill a contract to launch a scientific payload developed by National Central University (NCU) to an orbit of 150km or higher, a task commissioned by the NSPO in 2016 for about NT$50 million (US$1.79 million at the current exchange rate).
The scientific payload is an ionosphere scintillation package developed by NCU Department of Space Science and Engineering chair Chao Chi-kuang (趙吉光).
Chao’s team plans to visit Australia to collect the scientific data and share it with Australian collaborators, but the NSPO has not yet decided whether to fund the travel expenses, as it is waiting to see if TiSPACE’s first test launch would be a success, Chao said.
TiSPACE on June 29 told the NSPO that it had not obtained the Australian government’s approval for its launch, so the agency agreed to postpone their contract from July 31 to Dec. 31, the NSPO said.
Southern Launch’s Web site shows that there are to be three test launch slots for suborbital flights in the third and fourth quarters of this year, although it does not mention TiSPACE.
Some Taiwanese space enthusiasts have expressed regret that they would not be able to witness the Taiwanese company conduct its first rocket launch.
After TiSPACE’s failure to launch its rocket in Taiwan, it is eager to explore new business opportunities in Australia, a source familiar with the matter told the Taipei Times.
The company, based in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南), is still working on rocket-related research and development, but it is also seeking to develop new space applications in Australia, not just launch services, the person said on condition of anonymity.
While it has received more funding from private investors, TiSPACE cannot just exist on projects funded by the NSPO and it is looking for business opportunities in Australia and other nations, the person said.
As of press time last night, the company had not responded to a Taipei Times request for comment.
Following the controversy surrounding TiSPACE’s Taiwan launch plan, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced a plan for a sounding rocket launch site in Pingtung County’s Syuhai Village (旭海).
The 0.97-hectare site would be used for rocket launches on a short-term basis, the NSPO said.
Once the NSPO obtains the consent of local Aboriginal communities, scientists would be able to use the site for rocket testing, it said.
Meanwhile, the ministry is looking for a site to build a launch pad for commercial long-term use, as stipulated by the Space Development Act (太空發展法), and it is drafting regulations to be submitted to the legislature related to the new site, compensation for local residents and a reorganization of the NSPO.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B