On Wed, Mar 23, Diwata-1 — the Philippines’ first ever microsatellite — was launched into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA via the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Orbital ATK Commercial Resupply Services Flight 6 (OA-6) Cygnus spacecraft.
The microsatellite was developed and assembled by Filipino scientists in partnership with the Tohoku University and Hokkaido University of Japan. It is part of the Department of Science and Technology’s Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Micro-Satellite (PHL-Microsat) Program.
READ: PH’s first microsatellite unveiled
In a Reuters report, Dr. Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, the Undersecretary for Scientific and Technological Services of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), said, “This is the first microsatellite that is built with Filipino engineers, and also the first microsatellite of the Philippines.”
The DOST funded the US$6.8-million (PHP314,741,400-million) project.
“DIWATA-1 is described as ‘a smooth, silver metal device is small in scale, weighing about 110 pounds.’ It will gather on-demand and real-time status of the country’s environment, particularly for applications such as disaster risk management, land-use, and aquatic resource assessment and monitoring,” reports ABS-CBN News.
The report further noted: “Once in space, DIWATA-1 is expected to traverse a Low-Earth Orbit — 400 to 420 kilometers from the ground—taking images of the Philippines during its projected two daytime passes. It is equipped with a high precision telescope (HPT) for high resolution imaging, which could be used for assessment of the extent of damage during disasters. It also has a spaceborne multispectral imager (SMI) with LCTF for monitoring bodies of water and vegetation and a wide field camera (WFC) for observing large-scale weather patterns.”
