Taiwan flagged its space ambition as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday marked the departure of the nation’s first indigenously engineered weather satellite from the Taiwan Space Agency at an event at the Hsinchu Science Park.
While Taiwan has since the 1990s had a satellite program, called Formosat, tensions with China have given the government extra impetus, with plans to use satellites in medium and low Earth orbit for Internet services that would be a backup in the event that China severed undersea cables or other communication links.
The Triton satellite — or Wind Hunter (獵風者) — is being shipped to French Guiana, where it is to be launched on an Arianespace Vega rocket in September.
Photo: CNA
“The Wind Hunter satellite was born and bred in Taiwan,” Tsai said, adding that almost everything about the spacecraft, from conceptual design to manufacturing, was done in Taiwan.
“The Wind Hunter proves that with the advantages of Taiwan’s semiconductor and precision manufacturing, the nation is absolutely capable of entering the global space industry,” she said.
The satellite shows Taiwan’s determination to develop a space industry and participate in the space age, she said.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Triton is to be put into a circular low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 550km to 650km, the Taiwan Space Agency said.
It is to collect sea-surface wind data that would be combined with ground radar wind field data to better predict heavy rain and the paths of typhoons.
Taiwan Space Agency Director-General Wu Jong-shinn (吳宗信) said that Triton was initially planned to be one of the satellites making up the Formosat-7 constellation before being retasked following structural changes to the nation’s space program.
The changes meant that Triton would be made almost entirely in Taiwan in a move aimed at bolstering the domestic aerospace industry, Wu said, adding that research and development for Triton began in 2014.
Eighty-three percent of its key components were manufactured domestically, showing how much the nation’s spacecraft research and development capabilities have improved, he said.
Triton’s launch would be a boon to the global meteorological community, as many satellites have been retired in the past few years, he said.
The commercialization of space exploration began a mere four years ago and the nation has kept pace with progress in the sector, National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) said.
In May, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent a delegation to Taiwan and expressed interest in collaborative efforts involving Triton, he said, adding that meteorological satellites are highly versatile.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS