Türkiye received its first own optical satellite

On April 15, the Falcon 9 rocket of the American Space X (owned by billionaire Elon Musk) launched the first military-civilian optical earth remote sensing satellite (ERS) of the Turkish development IMECE into orbit. The launch took place from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the private space company reports on Twitter. With the launch of IMECE, the Turkish orbital constellation has reached 10 vehicles.

The satellite, developed by the Tubitak Uzay Space Technology Research Institute and built by Turkish Aerospace Industries at a factory in Ankara, was launched into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 680 kilometers. The launch was delayed three times. The original launch date was January. Later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the launch of the apparatus into orbit on April 11. However, on that day, SpaceX announced on its Twitter that the launch was delayed. The device was not launched on April 12 due to weather conditions.

According to the Tubitak Uzay Institute, the optical equipment that has been equipped with the IMECE satellite, which has been developed since 2017, has an image area of ​​13.9 km by 16.2 km in one frame with a panchromatic image resolution (PAN) of 0.99 m, and a multispectral (MSI) – 3.96 m.

Türkiye is not the only country in the Middle East that has acquired its own optical satellite. Earlier this year, Egypt also received its Horus remote sensing orbiter. It was launched on February 24 by a Chinese Long March 2C launch vehicle. The creation of the apparatus has been carried out since 2019 as part of a joint Chinese-Egyptian project, for which the Beijing authorities provided grant funding. Egypt’s previous spacecraft and their launches were carried out in cooperation with Ukraine and Russia, including launching into orbit from the Russian Baikonur cosmodrome.

African countries are also trying to get such devices. In March of this year, Angola ordered its first ERS satellite Angeo-1 from the European Airbus Defense and Space. They will be the Airbus S250 “last generation”. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. In October, the Russian-Angolan communication satellite AngoSat-2 was launched from Baikonur into orbit, created to replace the AngoSat-1 lost in December 2017.

Russia is also building and launching remote sensing satellites for developing countries. Thus, in August 2022, the Iranian-Russian apparatus Khayyam (named after the poet Omar Khayyam) was launched into orbit by the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The device was the result of Russian-Iranian technical cooperation. As Roscosmos reported, in 2015 an agreement was signed on the development and creation of a remote sensing satellite for Iran. On the Russian side, the project participants were VNIIEM (the developer of the spacecraft and launch operator on the Russian launch vehicle) and NPK BARL (responsible for the integration and refinement of the ground-based infrastructure of the remote sensing space system), on the Iranian side, the company Boniyan Danesh Sharg. The technical characteristics of the device were not disclosed.

The tasks of remote sensing of the Earth from space are all optical or other surveys with any purpose, from public maps to military intelligence proper, says military expert, researcher at IMEMO RAS Alexander Ermakov. According to him, Turkey, on the one hand, for reasons of prestige, on the other hand, for reasons of practical use, wanted to get exactly “its own” satellite reconnaissance means. Foreign services in critical situations related to military conflicts or political complications may not always be available. This means of remote sensing, indeed, can be used by both military and civilian consumers, the expert says.

According to Ermakov, based on the characteristics of the IMECE optical equipment, the Turkish satellite is primarily a civilian device rather than a military one – it is convenient to monitor the ecology, geology, and weather with its help. The military can only “learn” on it, try out the possibilities, the expert concludes.