The launch of weather satellite Triton, or Wind Hunter (獵風者), has been postponed to 2022 due to component delivery delays, while cuts in the government budget have affected other satellite projects, the National Space Organization (NSPO) said yesterday.
The NSPO last year said that Triton would be launched by French rocket supplier Arianespace in the second half of next year from French Guiana, although its Web site had said that the launch was scheduled for June 2022.
NSPO Director-General Lin Chun-liang (林俊良) yesterday confirmed the delay, saying that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign suppliers could not deliver some components in time, including two solar energy panels.
The nation is working to become more independent in space technology development to reduce uncertainty and costs in satellite development, Lin said.
Triton has a NT$1.23 billion (US$41.87 million) budget, with more than 85 percent of its components developed in Taiwan, he said.
Critical components, including for its Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) system, its hydrogen peroxide system, its onboard computer, power control unit, GPS receiver and fiber-optic gyro, were developed by the NSPO in collaboration with other local academic or industrial partners, he said.
The low-Earth orbit satellite would gather GNSS signals reflected from the Earth’s surface, which would help with research on soil characteristics and air-sea interactions, as well as boosting typhoon intensity predictions, the NSPO said.
The NSPO faces a budget cut of more than NT$500 million from its proposed budget of more than NT$2 billion for next year, Lin said.
Lin did not comment on a cause for the cut, but said it would affect the development schedule of Formosat-8, a constellation of six high-resolution optical remote sensing satellites.
While the Executive Yuan last year agreed to allocate NT$25.1 billion for the third space technology development program, the NSPO’s annual funding might be adjusted every year, Lin said.
The first of the Formosat-8 satellites is scheduled to be launched in June 2023, the NSPO’s Web site showed.
Meanwhile, three cubesats commissioned by the NSPO and built by National Central University, National Formosa University, MoGaMe Mobile Entertainment Co and National Taiwan Ocean University are to be part of a rideshare launch by SpaceX in December, Lin said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
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