Japanese start-up ArkEdge Space yesterday said that an observation satellite it helped build for the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) has captured what could be the world’s best-quality Earth imagery from a spacecraft smaller than a suitcase.
The small optical observation satellite Onglaisat took 2.5m resolution images after being released to orbit about 400km above the Earth in December last year, the company said.
“The pictures are as clear as aerial photography, [despite] being taken by a satellite of this size,” ArkEdge Space chief executive officer Takayoshi Fukuyo told a news conference earlier this week.
Photo: Reuters
He added that it was probably the highest-resolution image ever captured by a small cubesat.
Black-and-white images released by ArkEdge showed land, trees and buildings of places such as a Seattle suburb and Argentina’s Patagonia taken by Onglaisat late last month.
Onglaisat, an acronym of “onboard globe-looking and imaging satellite,” mounts TASA’s optical equipment on a cubesat about the size of a desktop computer, codeveloped by ArkEdge and a University of Tokyo aerospace laboratory.
Onglaisat is to end its mission in early March, but the optical technology it demonstrated is to be applied to future remote sensing satellite missions, TASA said in a statement on Wednesday.
With heightening tension with China, Taiwan is rushing to secure space infrastructure in areas spanning from Earth observation to communications, including a 2023 launch of a weather satellite and talks with Amazon about its satellite Internet service Kuiper.
Taiwan’s space buildup has also led to deepening ties with commercial players in Japan, its neighbor and a close US ally.
TASA last year announced partnerships with other Japanese space start-ups, including Space One, which provided a satellite payload for the Kairos rocket’s failed second test, as well as moon exploration company ispace.
TiSpace, a Taiwanese private company founded by a former TASA official, aims to test its rocket in a private launch in northern Japan early this year.
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