ANKARA - Turkey's first observation microsatellite (BILSAT), which was produced with the method of technology transfer by Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Information Technologies and Electronics Research Institute (BILTEN), was launched from Russia on Saturday.
The satellite, which was jointly produced by BILTEN and British Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), was launched with a rocket from Plesetsk base in northern Russia at 09.11 a.m.
The rocket also carried microsatellites of Russia, Britain and Nigeria.
The control of BILSAT will be provided by ground stations after the satellite will go into orbit.
The project to produce BILSAT was prepared on August 12, 2001 and its design was completed in April 2002 and it became ready for launching on June 3, 2003. BILSAT was scheduled to be launched on July 28, but it could not be launched due to a change in the program. The satellite could not be launched yesterday as well due to a failure in fuel filling system.
The BILSAT satellite is carrying five Earth observation cameras. One is a panchromatic camera and the remaining four are obtaining images in red, green, blue and near infrared bands. The satellite has very accurate pointing and is capable of imaging the same area at different incidence angles, permitting the virtual construction of stereoscopic images.
(GC-BRC) 27.09.2003