Taiwan’s first home-grown weather satellite established communication with Taiwan for the first time on Monday night after being launched earlier in the day, the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) said.
The satellite, called Triton, made its first contact with the ground station in Hsinchu as it passed over Taiwan at 8:56pm on Monday, TASA said.
Triton, which weighs 250kg, was launched from French Guiana at 9:37am on Monday Taiwan time as part of an Arianespace Vega C rideshare mission.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Space Agency
The satellite successfully entered orbit at 10:31am at an altitude of 601km, TASA data showed.
TASA Director-General Wu Jong-shinn (吳宗信) said that based on the data received, the satellite’s condition, including its temperature and power, was within expectations.
Speaking to reporters at TASA’s office in Hsinchu earlier in the day, Wu said the launch was Taiwan’s first foray into domestically engineered weather satellites made with components designed and manufactured locally.
The satellite’s name was inspired by Greek mythology. Triton, the son of Poseidon — the god of the sea — inherited a trident that symbolized maritime domination, and wielded a conch with the power to command the wind and the waves.
As the name suggests, Triton’s main objective is to measure wind data not by the standard method of taking photographs of atmospheric layers, but by measuring wind speed based on signals from ocean surfaces, Wu said.
The system, called Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R), determines wind strength by analyzing the sea surface data. The calmer the sea, the stronger the signal, indicating weaker winds.
Triton is only the fourth satellite in the world to have its primary mission oriented around a GNSS-R scientific payload, Wu said.
Its data, which include wavelengths and wind speeds, can complement wind field information from ground radar, enhancing the accuracy of typhoon trajectory predictions and heavy rainfall.
The satellite would initially focus on monitoring areas at low northern hemisphere latitudes of the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which are prone to severe weather, Wu said.
Its mission would expand to cover the southern hemisphere, he said.
Asked what is next for TASA, Wu said the agency is in the process of developing six high-resolution optical satellites, collectively known as the Formosat-8 constellation.
The agency is also planning to leverage the advantages of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to build rockets with the goal of launching Taiwan-manufactured satellites into low Earth orbit within the next six to seven years, he said.
Also on the agenda is collaboration with foreign counterparts and acquiring more data that can contribute to the advancement of meteorological forecasting, he added.
In January, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) announced that Taiwan expects to invest NT$25.1 billion (US$779.33 million) in the next 10 years to build a “national team” to seize opportunities in the space industry through collaboration between academia and industry.
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