Singapore Technologies Electronics has announced plans to build its own satellites and sell them to the global market.
Via its subsidiary ST Electronics (Satellite Systems) Pte Ltd, the company has said that it will work with the Singapore Economic…
Singapore Technologies Electronics has announced plans to build its own satellites and sell them to the global market.
Via its subsidiary ST Electronics (Satellite Systems) Pte Ltd, the company has said that it will work with the Singapore Economic Development Board (SEDB) to help it grow its commercial presence.
Set up in May 2011, ST Electronics (Satellite Systems) is a joint venture of ST Electronics, Nanyang Technological University and DSO National Laboratories.
The launch platform for this project is TeLEOS-1, a remote sensing satellite that ST Electronics has begun the design and development of.
The satellite weighs approximately 400 kilograms and will operate at a low earth orbit of 500km. It is designed to provide satellite images of 1 metre ground sampling distance from an electro-optics camera with an update rate of 90 minutes.
The satellite is targeted to be launched in 2015 with another subsidiary, ST Electronics (Satcom & Sensor Systems), operating, marketing and selling TeLEOS-1’s services.
Lee Fook Sun, president of ST Electronics, commented: “ST Electronics is excited to be the first commercial company doing satellite design and manufacturing activities in Singapore. We are proud to pioneer these efforts in Singapore together with the support of EDB and believe that this will contribute towards having a vibrant Singapore space industry.
“In this regard, we are currently developing the first made-in-Singapore commercial satellite and will also focus on offering earth observation services for customers requiring images around the equatorial belt. These activities will serve to complement other polar orbiting satellites with a more frequent update rate.”
