Singapore To Build First Satellite

TECH SPACE

Singapore hopes that by building its own satellite it will be able to put its own SPOT light on the island nation. File photo by SPOT.

by Paula Mccoy
Singapore - Dec 4, 2001
Researchers here are set to build the first made-in-Singapore micro-satellite in a partnership between the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and DSO National Laboratories.

The 120-kg experimental device X-SAT, which will cost about $10 million, is expected to be launched by 2007 and will be the first satellite designed and built entirely in Singapore.

Orbiting the earth every 90 minutes, X-SAT will observe the earth and collect and transmit data.

If it is a success, it may be used commercially and its data and pictures may be sold, NTU and DSO representatives said yesterday when they signed a memorandum of understanding.

In 1999, NTU scientists built the communications payload of the UoSAT-12 satellite launched in Kazakhstan the same year, making NTU the first educational institute here to put a satellite into space. The payload is the satellite's internal workings, which perform a variety of tasks.

The smallest satellite or nano-satellite usually weighs under 10 kg. Then comes the micro-satellite, and mini-satellite. A full-size satellite can weigh more than a tonne.

X-SAT, costing about $10 million, will be built by a core group of between 20 and 30 full-time staff at the new Centre for Research in Satellite Technologies (Crest), launched yesterday at the NTU campus. The partners will jointly develop micro-satellites and carry out research and development in satellite engineering.

Said DSO chief Quek Tong Boon: "X-SAT will enable Crest to boost its ability to develop a complete satellite and put it into orbit. The experience gained will give us the confidence to better define the specifications and successors to X-SAT."

Source: Singapore Press Holdings

TERRADAILY

Singapore Ground Station Begins Direct Tasking Of IKONOS

Singapore - Sept 3, 2001
The Center for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (CRISP) at the National University of Singapore has begun direct tasking and data collection of high-resolution imagery from Space Imaging's IKONOS satellite. As IKONOS passes through a 4,600 km diameter communications circle around Singapore, CRISP is now able to task, collect, download and process the imagery, all in a short amount of time.

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