The Philippines is targeting to launch two more nanosatellites into space this year, the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) said Monday, June 14.
In a virtual public briefing, PhilSA Director General Joel Marciano Jr. said the country’s third and fourth nanosatellites will be launched into space “later this year.”
“Later this year, hopefully we look forward to deploying two more nano-satellites, Maya-3 and Maya-4, which are important in the sense that we have built them from Philippine universities,” Marciano said.
“That means we are taking what we learn from Japanese universities to the scholars that have come back, and the professors and other researchers that have been trained and we are now implementing them in our local academic institutions and proliferating them to other universities and high schools as well,” he added.
Marciano said the country has placed four satellites into orbit since 2016, through the efforts of Filipino engineers in collaboration with Japanese universities.
These are the Earth observation micro-satellites Diwata-1 and Diwata-2, and two nanosatellites namely Maya-1 and Maya-2
“These satellite development activities are complemented by ground infrastructure activities spread across the country,” he said.
“They are used to communicate with the Philippine Earth observation satellites, and as well as those of other countries that we subscribe to,” he added.
Some of these ground developments are located in Metro Manila, Davao, and Iloilo, Marciano said.
The PhilSA chief underscored the importance of satellites, which help generate geospatial data and information of the country’s terrain.
Moreover, he noted that the satellites can be used for “surveillance, navigation, global positioning, and also telecommunications."
"We use satellites for emergency communications when ground-based infrastructure breaks down and the there are no cell towers,” Marciano said.
“So we can use these satellites that pass overhead to send messages and talk to people in cases of emergencies,” he added.
The STAMINA4Space had said that the Maya-3 and Maya-4, the first Philippine-university built cube satellites, were turned over to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on April 28.
The STAMINA4Space is the country’s space research and development program funded by the DOST and implemented by DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) and the University of the Philippines (UP).
The program aims to further develop deep expertise that enable and sustain the growth of a local scientific-industrial base in space technology and applications in the Philippines.