Taiwan’s domestically developed PARUS-T1 satellite was launched into space yesterday on SpaceX’s Transporter-12 rocket from the US Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to begin its 12-month technological mission.
The rideshare mission was declared a success at 11:09am (7:05pm Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday), the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) said.
The PARUS-T1 is a domestically designed, manufactured and integrated CubeSat-class 3U satellite launched to test the maturity of Taiwanese satellites, the agency said.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Space Agency
It carried an experimental payload of telecommunications and systems to automatically identify ships.
The 3U-sized T1, T1A and T2 3U satellites and the 6U-sized T3 and T4 satellites share a common family of platforms developed under TASA’s PARUS program, it said.
Named after Sittiparus castaneoventris, a species of small birds endemic to Taiwan, the PARUS program’s aim is to develop compact and innovative satellite systems for the nation’s use, TASA said.
The SpaceX rocket deployed PARUS-T1 at an altitude of 515km in low Earth orbit 57 minutes after the launch, and the satellite deployed its solar panels and antenna 30 minutes after it entered orbit, it said.
PARUS-T1A, the PARUS T-1’s ill-lucked sibling, was lost in a failed launch of Space One’s KAIROS vehicle in Japan last month, TASA said.
Separately, the TASA and the Ministry of Environment yesterday unveiled a program to produce a constellation of air quality observation satellites to monitor air pollution over Taiwan, China and Southeast Asian nations.
The constellation would consist of four multispectral and hyperspectral device-equipped satellites to measure particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), carbon dioxide and methane concentrations, officials told a news conference in Taipei.
The NT$6.1 billion (US$184.49 million) research and development program — which is expected to put its first satellite in orbit in three years — is to be implemented from next year to 2031, the officials said.
In addition, the ministry is conducting a program to monitor air pollution over Kaohsiung and Pingtung County in collaboration with NASA and researchers from Taiwan and the US, they said.
The 3D air pollution monitoring program makes use of readings from ground-based stations, drones, aircraft and satellites to analyze the distribution of pollutants and improve predictive modeling, they said.
The ministry is also applying Internet of Things and generative artificial intelligence technologies to locate air pollution sources, they added.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to