The first satellite of the Formosat-8 system was to be launched into space at 2:18am (Taiwan time) today from the Vanderbilt Space Force Base in California, the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) said yesterday, adding that people could watch simulcasts of the satellite launch via the Facebook pages of TASA, and the National Science and Technology Council, as well as TASA’s YouTube channel.
Formosat-8 is the nation’s first self-made optical remote sensing satellite constellation, consisting of six satellites with a native resolution of 1m and two with native resolution of less than 1m.
The first satellite of the constellation, named Chi Po-lin (齊柏林衛星) by President William Lai (賴清德), has 84 percent of its components made domestically.
Photo courtesy of the National Science and Technology Council.
Prior to yesterday, the launch of the first satellite had been delayed four times, the agency said.
The National Science and Technology Council said the satellite was to be carried into space via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Transporter-15 rocket.
In addition to the satellite, the rocket’s payload includes five CubeSats made by Taiwanese start-up companies and university researchers, the council said.
The rocket was scheduled to jettison its payload fairing about three minutes after launch, the council said.
The rocket would deploy five CubeSats into a 510km orbit 54 minutes after launch, it added.
The satellite is expected to separate from the rocket 140 minutes after launch, entering a 561km sun-synchronous orbit to carry out an Earth-observation optical remote sensing mission, the council said.
The Chi Po-lin satellite also carries a dual-band ionospheric transient imager and an electron temperature and density probe — developed by a research team led by National Cheng Kung University physics professor Chen Bing-chih (陳炳志) — to conduct ionospheric observations, as well as research on the origins and triggering mechanisms of ground-based gamma-ray flashes, the council said.
“We hope that this mission would demonstrate multiple technologies independently developed by Taiwan, including satellite high-frequency communication, inter-satellite communication, smart remote sensing, electric propulsion, deployment mechanisms, and deorbit control functions,” the council said.
Full deployment of the constellation is expected by 2031.
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