Saudi Arabia is scheduled to dispatch its third microsatellite next Friday, December 20. “The new satellite is designed to collect vital data on weather and oil exploration as well as to monitor movement of vehicles in remote areas,” reported the official Saudi press agency. The new microsatellite will be launched from a Russian site in Kazakhstan, the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The Sudisat-1a and Saudisat-1b are the first two 10-kilogram Saudi microsatellites, launched in September 2000, as a cost of one million dollars each. They were designed and built by the Space Research Institute at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Riyadh. They are both low Earth orbiting Satellites designed to provide store-and-forward communications and carry several space experiments. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
