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 () or TÜBİTAK UZAY for short, is a Turkish institution carrying out research and development projects on space technology, electronics, information technology, and related fields. It was establish ...
(TÜBİTAK UZAY) and produced in
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
as part of the
Disaster Monitoring Constellation
The Disaster Monitoring Constellation for International Imaging (DMCii) or just Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) consists of a number of remote sensing satellites constructed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and operated for the Alg ...
(DMC) project in the context of a show-how program led by
DMC International Imaging
DMC International Imaging (DMCii) is the company that manages the Disaster Monitoring Constellation for the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters. It also sells satellite imaging services under contract and manages the operations of ...
of
Surrey Satellite Technology
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a company involved in the manufacture and operation of small satellites. A spin-off company of the University of Surrey, it is presently wholly owned by Airbus Defence and Space.
The company began ...
Arkhangelsk Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast ( rus, Архангельская область, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲskəjə ˈobɫəsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). It includes the Arctic Ocean, Arctic archipelagos of Franz ...
in
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
by a
Kosmos-3M
The Kosmos-3M ( meaning "''Cosmos''", GRAU index 11K65M) was a Russian space launch vehicle, member of the Kosmos (rocket family), Kosmos rocket family. It was a liquid-fueled two-stage launch vehicle, first launched in 1967 and with over 420 s ...
space launch vehicle on September 27, 2003, at 06:12
UTC
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...
in a multiple-satellite payload launch along with six other satellites, namely Mozhayets-4 and Larets of Russia,
NigeriaSat
The National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) is the national space agency of Nigeria. It is a parastatal under Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. The agency is based in the Nigerian capital city of Abuja in t ...
of
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
,
UK-DMC
UK-DMC or UK-DMC 1, also known as BNSCSAT-1, was a British satellite that formed part of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). It was built by Surrey Satellite Technology, who operated it via DMC International Imaging on behalf of the Br ...
from the United Kingdom,
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
's
Rubin 4-DS
Rubin is both a surname and a given name. Rubins is a Latvian-language name.It derives from the biblical name Reuben as a Jewish name. The choice is also influenced by the word ''rubin'' meaning "ruby," in some languages.polar, circular,
Sun-synchronous
A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...
geocentric orbit
A geocentric orbit, Earth-centered 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 6,21 ...
at an altitude of with orbital parameters as period 98.5 min, apogee , perigee and
inclination
Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object.
For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...
98.2°.
Mission
One of the four spacecraft of the DMC project, which is an organization for international space program cooperation formed by seven countries, namely United Kingdom,
Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, Nigeria,
Thailand
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
,
Vietnam
Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
and Turkey, BILSAT-1 was dedicated to studies on agriculture, forestry, hydrology, land cover/use and mapping, environment as well as urban area development. It was built at a cost of $14 million.
The first images were from
Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
taken on October 18,
Gulf of İskenderun
The Gulf of Alexandretta or İskenderun () is a gulf of the eastern Mediterranean or Levantine Sea. It lies beside the southern Turkish provinces of Adana and Hatay.
Names
The gulf is named for the nearby Turkish city of İskenderun, the cl ...
, Turkey taken on October 30 and
Kuwait City
Kuwait City (; ) is the capital and largest city of Kuwait. Located at the heart of the country on the south shore of Kuwait Bay on the Persian Gulf, it is the political, cultural and economic center of the emirate, containing Kuwait's Seif Pal ...
taken on November 6, 2003.
BILSAT-1 ended its mission in August 2006 due to battery cells failure.
Payloads
Turkey's first indigenously developed scientific
microsatellite
A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain Sequence motif, DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organ ...
for
remote sensing
Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, 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 inform ...
, BILSAT-1 was based on an enhanced SSTL-100
satellite bus
A satellite bus (or spacecraft bus) is the main body and structural component of a satellite or spacecraft, in which the payload and all scientific instruments are held.
Bus-derived satellites are less customized than specially-produced satelli ...
. The satellite features a multi-spectral instrument called ÇOBAN, which is a low-resolution 8-channel camera. The name is an abbreviation for "ÇOk-BANtlı Kamera" for "Multi-Band Camera". It has two imaging sensors, a 4-band visible and near-infrared (VNIR) sensor at a resolution of and a high-resolution panchromatic sensor at . The
swath width
A swathe ( British English, rhymes with "bathe"; or swath American English, rhymes with "cloth") is the strip of cut crop made by a scythe or a mowing-machine. A mower with a scythe cuts a swathe along the mowing-edge leaving the uncut grass t ...
s were for the VNIR and for the panchromatic sensor. The sensors had a 4-day repeat cycle.
BILSAT-1 hosted a real time image compression module named GEZGIN, an abbreviation for "GErçek Zamanda Görüntü İşleyeN", which is a
digital signal processor
A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit chips. ...
using
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 their ...
algorithm to compress images taken by the satellite. Further payloads are on board propulsion,
GPS navigation device
A satellite navigation (satnav) device or GPS device is a device that uses satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) or similar global navigation satellite systems (GNSS).
A satnav device can determine the user's geographic coordinat ...
, a GPS attitude receiver and a
control moment gyroscope
A control moment gyroscope (CMG) is an attitude control device generally used in spacecraft attitude control systems. A CMG consists of a spinning rotor and one or more motorized gimbals that tilt the rotor’s angular momentum. As the rotor til ...
. BILSAT-1 also hosted new technologies such as high-capacity solid-state data recorders and
star tracker
A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a camera.
As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may ...