Taiwan’s domestically developed PARUS-T1 satellite was launched into space yesterday on SpaceX’s Transporter-12 rocket from the US Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to begin its 12-month technological mission.
The rideshare mission was declared a success at 11:09am (7:05pm Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday), the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) said.
The PARUS-T1 is a domestically designed, manufactured and integrated CubeSat-class 3U satellite launched to test the maturity of Taiwanese satellites, the agency said.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Space Agency
It carried an experimental payload of telecommunications and systems to automatically identify ships.
The 3U-sized T1, T1A and T2 3U satellites and the 6U-sized T3 and T4 satellites share a common family of platforms developed under TASA’s PARUS program, it said.
Named after Sittiparus castaneoventris, a species of small birds endemic to Taiwan, the PARUS program’s aim is to develop compact and innovative satellite systems for the nation’s use, TASA said.
The SpaceX rocket deployed PARUS-T1 at an altitude of 515km in low Earth orbit 57 minutes after the launch, and the satellite deployed its solar panels and antenna 30 minutes after it entered orbit, it said.
PARUS-T1A, the PARUS T-1’s ill-lucked sibling, was lost in a failed launch of Space One’s KAIROS vehicle in Japan last month, TASA said.
Separately, the TASA and the Ministry of Environment yesterday unveiled a program to produce a constellation of air quality observation satellites to monitor air pollution over Taiwan, China and Southeast Asian nations.
The constellation would consist of four multispectral and hyperspectral device-equipped satellites to measure particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), carbon dioxide and methane concentrations, officials told a news conference in Taipei.
The NT$6.1 billion (US$184.49 million) research and development program — which is expected to put its first satellite in orbit in three years — is to be implemented from next year to 2031, the officials said.
In addition, the ministry is conducting a program to monitor air pollution over Kaohsiung and Pingtung County in collaboration with NASA and researchers from Taiwan and the US, they said.
The 3D air pollution monitoring program makes use of readings from ground-based stations, drones, aircraft and satellites to analyze the distribution of pollutants and improve predictive modeling, they said.
The ministry is also applying Internet of Things and generative artificial intelligence technologies to locate air pollution sources, they added.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS