RASAT was an

earth observation satellite An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, me ...

designed and developed by

TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute ( tr, TÜBİTAK Uzay Teknolojileri Araştırma Enstitüsü) or TÜBİTAK UZAY for short, is a Turkish institution carrying out research and development projects on space technology, electronics, in ...

(TÜBİTAK UZAY) and produced in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

to provide high resolution imagery. It was the first

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...

satellite fully realized in Turkey, and the second indigenously developed remote sensing satellite after

BILSAT-1 BILSAT-1 (formerly just ''BILSAT'') was an earth observation satellite designed and developed by TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute (TÜBİTAK UZAY) and produced in Turkey as part of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) projec ...

. Financed by the

State Planning Organization State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

(DPT) and designed by TÜBİTAK UZAY without any international know-how transfer, RASAT was launched from Dombarovskiy Cosmodrome, near

Yasny Yasny (russian: Я́сный; masculine), Yasnaya (; feminine), or Yasnoye (; neuter) is the name of several types of inhabited localities in Russia, inhabited localities in Russia. ;Urban localities *Yasny, Orenburg Oblast, a town in Orenburg Ob ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

by a

Dnepr Dnepr may refer to: *Dnieper, a river flowing through Russia, Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea * Dnepr (motorcycle), a Ukraininan motocycle brand * Dnepr (rocket), a 1999 space launch vehicle *Dnepr radar Dnepr may refer to: *Dnieper, a river ...

space launch vehicle at 08:12:20 UTC on August 17, 2011, along with seven other satellites Sich-2 and BPA-2 of

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X of

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

EduSat EduSAT is an Italian microsatellite which was launched in August 2011. The satellite was built and is operated by the Sapienza University of Rome in conjunction with the Italian Space Agency ASI, and is primarily used for educational outreach an ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

as well as

AprizeSat-5 AprizeSat is an American micro-satellite platform for low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of t ...

and AprizeSat-6 of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. RASAT was placed 16 minutes and 9 seconds after the lift-off into a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

of . The first signal from RASAT was received in the space center of

Andøya Rocket Range Andøya is the northernmost island in the Vesterålen archipelago, situated about inside the Arctic circle. Andøya is located in Andøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The main population centres on the island include the villages o ...

, northern

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

at 09:44:04 UTC. RASAT was controlled and observed at the space center of TÜBİTAK UZAY in

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

Mission

Projected for a mission duration of three years, RASAT is on a sun-synchronous

geocentric orbit A geocentric orbit or Earth orbit involves any object orbiting Earth, such as the Moon or artificial satellites. In 1997, NASA estimated there were approximately 2,465 artificial satellite payloads orbiting Earth and 6,216 pieces of space debris ...

. Its instruments, supplied by the

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

n space technology company

Satrec Initiative Satrec Initiative Co., Ltd. (Korean: 쎄트렉아이) or Satrec i or SI is a South Korean satellite manufacturing company headquartered in Daejeon, South Korea The company was founded in 1999 by the engineers who developed the first Korean satel ...

, allowed for a

spatial resolution In physics and geosciences, the term spatial resolution refers to distance between independent measurements, or the physical dimension that represents a pixel of the image. While in some instruments, like cameras and telescopes, spatial resolutio ...

of at panchromatic band and at multispectral band. RASAT carried out various civil applications on mapping and planning,

disaster management Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...

, ecosystem monitoring,

environmental control Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HV ...

, landcover survey and coastal zone management. Additionally, RASAT was used to test a custom designed on-board computer "BiLGE" capable of using

SpaceWire SpaceWire is a spacecraft communication network based in part on the IEEE 1355 standard of communications. It is coordinated by the European Space Agency (ESA) in collaboration with international space agencies including NASA, JAXA, and RKA. ...

network, a

solid-state Solid state, or solid matter, is one of the four fundamental states of matter. Solid state may also refer to: Electronics * Solid-state electronics, circuits built of solid materials * Solid state ionics, study of ionic conductors and their use ...

processor "GEZGİN-2" (an abbreviation for "GErçek Zamanda Görüntü İşleyeN") for real-time

image compression Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for storage or transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properties of image data to provide superior r ...

using algorithm of

JPEG 2000 JPEG 2000 (JP2) is an image compression standard and coding system. It was developed from 1997 to 2000 by a Joint Photographic Experts Group committee chaired by Touradj Ebrahimi (later the JPEG president), with the intention of superseding the ...

and a

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

system "Treks" of

X band The X band is the designation for a band of frequencies in the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In some cases, such as in communication engineering, the frequency range of the X band is rather indefinitely set at approxim ...

transmitter module with 100

MB/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

data transfer rate and 7

Watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

power.

Images

The first images were received in Ankara on October 8, 2011. With images captured by the satellite between 2012 and 2014, a "mosaic map" of Turkey was compiled. More than 3,000 images showing an area of each were used for the map. The map images are available ay the website "gezgin.gov.tr" in the

image file formats An Image file format is a file format for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Most formats up until 2022 were for storing 2D images, not 3D ones. The data stored in an image file format may be c ...

of .ecw (high

image resolution Image resolution is the detail an image holds. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies how ...

: 9 GB, low image resolution: 50 MB), .jp2 (21.8 GB, 33 MB),

.tif Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word processing ...

(35.7 GB, 58.1 MB),

.img img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...

(45.6 GB, 85.7 MB) and KMZ (11.3 MB). The map was distributed to governmental agencies, particularly to the

State Hydraulic Works The State Hydraulic Works ( tr, Devlet Su İşleri) is a state agency, under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Turkey, responsible for the utilization of all the country's water resources. The institution's four major functions are ene ...

(DSİ) and Mineral Research and Exploration (MTA). In 2013, three-dimensional relief maps of Turkey created by RASAT were offered on the web. Customers are able to order and download their actual map requirements. As of November 15, 2015, RASAT took images of Earth surface on 22,699 orbits since its launch on August 17, 2011. A research project, named "Geoportal", was launched by Ministry of Development on January 15, 2013, with an application run-time of four years. Images were uploaded on August 19, 2014, to the portal, which is open to use by public services and universities. As of November 17, 2015, 6,517 processed images captured by RASAT were uploaded to GEZGIN portal.

End of mission

RASAT was retired in August 2022, after operating for 11 years. Over its lifetime, RASAT took 13,362 images over 58,726 orbits.

References

{{TÜBİTAK Earth observation satellites of Turkey Spacecraft launched in 2011 Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey Spacecraft launched by Dnepr rockets