FORMOSAT-2, the nation’s first locally developed ionospheric research and surface mapping satellite, has been decommissioned after 12 years in operation.
The satellite had remained operational eight years past its expected lifespan of five years, but a series of equipment failures finally forced the National Space Organization (NSPO) to pull the plug.
One of its four reaction wheels, which rotate and position the satellite, malfunctioned in 2013, and another one stopped working in June, which meant FORMOSAT-2 could no longer take pictures or make observations, the agency said.
Photo courtesy of the National Space Organization
After weeks of repair efforts, the NSPO determined that the problematic wheels could not be fixed and that FORMOSAT-2 had to be retired.
The agency made its last contact with FORMOSAT-2 during a decommissioning ceremony on Friday at its headquarters in Hsinchu, bringing an end to the nation’s most successful surveillance satellite program.
“With gratitude, we congratulate FORMOSAT-2 for the service it provided. It accompanied us over the past 12 years as we grew up. It is like an old friend, or more like a teacher,” NSPO Director Chang Guey-shin (張桂祥) said. “The satellite made an unparalleled contribution to the nation’s space development.”
The satellite, which cost NT$4.6 billion (US$145.5 million at current exchange rates) to build, was launched on May 21, 2004, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
It circles the Earth once every 103 minutes and passes over Taiwan twice a day.
It was the nation’s only satellite with a daily revisit capability, meaning it could take pictures of a given location every day, and the only one that could photograph the polar regions.
The satellite took about 2.55 million pictures of the Earth’s surface.
The pictures brought in about NT$600 million in revenue, while images worth about NT$1.1 billion were provided to 191 government agencies and 176 academic institutions in Taiwan free of charge.
The satellite helped with scientific research, environmental monitoring, urban planning and natural disaster prevention and evaluation.
FORMOSAT-2 was used in 343 disaster response missions, providing authorities with immediate images of damaged areas during the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in December 2004, Hurricane Katrina in the US in 2005, the Sichuan earthquake in China in 2008, Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan in 2009 and the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011.
For eight days after Morakot hit Taiwan, the satellite took detailed pictures of all areas damaged by the typhoon to help the government evaluate the situation and plan its emergency response.
FORMOSAT-2 was also the first satellite to observe the transient luminous event — an electrical-discharge phenomena well above the altitudes of normal lightning and storm clouds — and its observations have been cited in numerous academic research.
Additional reporting by staff writer
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
RSS