Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission made an official statement on Wednesday about the launch of an optical remote sensing satellite PRSS-1 in 2018. This would be the first ever optical remote sensing satellite in Pakistan.
This announcement was made at the opening ceremony of the World Space Week 2017 planned by SUPARCO. The ceremony was at held in Islamabad at IST, Institute of Space and Technology.
The ceremony was inaugurated by Qaiser Anees Khurram, Chairman SUPARCO. He was also the chief guest of the event.
At another event organized by SUPARCO in Karachi Headquarters at NCRG, National Center for Remote Sensing and Geo-Informatics, Ayaz Aziz was invited as the chief guest. Mr. Aziz is Member range and Instrumentation (R&I).
World Space Week related activities and celebrations would be held throughout Pakistan, specifically in sixteen cities from October 4th till October 10th.
Ayaz Aziz in one of his addresses said that SUPARCO is honored to be involved with World Space Week. It serves as a national coordinator of World Space Week Association (WSWA) in Pakistan. He further said that SUPARCO has been serving this role since 2005.
He also said that Pakistan is among the other 86 nations who celebrate and dedicate efforts, every year for the enhancement of space science and technology.
Talking about the contributions made by SUPARCO for the socio-economic development. He highlighted the works like the Land cover categorization of Pakistan, Land information system, national environment information management, glacier monitoring, etc. He said that SUPARCO has significantly dedicated its efforts for the environment modeling and natural resource management. For the agriculture, sector projects are made like active crop estimation and Risk & Disaster assessment. Another project is under development that is mitigation and management program.
Relating PRSS-1 he said that it is all complete to be released by 2018. The launch of this optical remote sensing satellite would help in making Pakistan independent in multispectral imaging. Presently, a lot of money is being spent on satellite imaging and satellite-based monitoring of different national ventures. With PRSS-1 the huge capital in this regard could be saved.
Ayaz Aziz mentioned about another already working satellite, Paksat-1R which is a communication satellite of SUPARCO. This satellite is working well and effectively. It is efficiently facilitating with communication and broadcasting facilities across Pakistan and in the neighboring countries.
According to Mr. Aziz young people are more inclined towards understanding the universe. The World Space Week makes the young generation happy and encourages them to seek information, schooling, and occupations in the discipline of space science and technology.
The ceremony came to an end by the initiation of space education bus by the chief guest and a bunch of SUPARCO employees collectively left to spread knowledge about space in rural areas of Sindh among school pupils.