Pakistan's Space Program

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Permalink Reply by Ameer Alam on September 5, 2011 at 9:18am

I would like to bring to the attention of our readers the name of Air Commodore Waldyslae Turowicz a Polish Pakistani military scientist and an aeronautical engineer. He is considered one of the chief architects of the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan Space Program. He was SUPARCO adminstrator from 1967 to 1970 and contributed geatly in the development of rocket, missile and satellite technology. An early contributer, he worked closely with Dr Abdus Salam in development of aeronautical sciences in Pakistan. He was responsible for the development of Pakistan's early weather satellite program Rehbar-I and REhbar-II. Please read his Wikipedia page to know details about his services to PAF and SUPARCO. He is one of the unsung heroes of Pakistan

Wikepedia Page

 

Note: The Indian Space Research Organization was established in 1969, eight years afer SUPARCO. There was no shortage of drive and vision in our early scientist.

 

Ameer Alam

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on November 5, 2011 at 6:48pm

Here's a Business Recorder report on the inauguration of PakSat-1R ground control station in Lahore:

He (Gilani) expressed pleasure that PAKSAT 1R has reached its intended orbit and all subsystems are functioning perfectly.

The PAKSET- 1R was launched on August 12 from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre by China Great Wall Industry Corporation (Cawie).

It was moved to its designated position at 38 degrees East longitude in the geo-stationary orbit to replace the existing satellite Pakistan 1.

It has 32 trans-transponders with three communication antennas to cover the whole of Pakistan and 75 other countries across Asia , East Africa and part of western Europe.

The Prime Minister said that application of space technologies is contributing significantly to socio-economic and security concepts of the developing countries like Pakistan.

He said that with this realisation in mind he approved Pakistan's Space Vision-2040 earlier this year, adding that successful launching and commissioning of PAKSAT 1R marks the first significant step towards realising the Space Vision.

He said that communication satellites were playing a vital role across the world over in bridging the digital divide between backward and remote areas and urban centres in the fields of health, education, entertainment and communication service delivery.

Gilani said PAKSAT-1R would help to extend the communication infrastructure to the entire country thus bringing the fruits of socio-economic development to the remotest corners of Pakistan.

He said that Suparco's space applications programme was already contributing to various fields, the significant ones being agriculture, crop monitoring, yield estimation, food and water security, improvement of water courses, monitoring of environment, disaster monitoring and mitigation, land cover use and many others.

He said with the availability of communication satellite PAKSAT-1R, significant strides would be made in mentioned areas to give impetus to all walks of national reconstruction and development.

The Prime Minister said that besides playing its fundamental role for extending communication facilities, he would urge Suparco and other stakeholders to focus more on tele-education and tele-medicine for improving the quality of life in the remote areas of the country.

He said by doing this benefits of the communication satellite services would be extended to the less privileged strata of society.

The Prime minister said that after successful deployment of PAKSAT 1R, he had directed Suparco to focus on the development of Remote Sensing Satellites to ensure that these satellites are developed and launched as envisaged in the Space Vision 2040.

The Prime Minister urged all federal ministries and provincial portfolios to optimum utilise space technology as an instrument of socio-economic development pointing that it was crucial that the space assets that nation acquired were used at best for the national cause.

He said that he was sure that in view of Pakistan's strategic relationship with China co-operation in space technology and its applications would become yet another hallmark of Pakistan-China friendship.

He said academia has a key role to play to spread knowledge about space technology.

He emphasised that academic and research institutions need to incorporate aspects pertaining to space sciences, space technology and their applications in their curricula.

About close co-operation, collaboration, co-ordination and interaction between Suparco and universities he said it could significantly lead to explore all avenues of space technology.

The Prime Minister expressed pleasure that Suparco, besides other responsibilities was making endeavours to create awareness about the space technology amongst youth.....

http://www.brecorder.com/top-stories/single/595/0/1249247/

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on November 5, 2011 at 6:53pm

Have you ever wondered why NASA is now using Russian Soyuz rockets to put American astronauts in space? Is it because Americans lack such capability?

The fact that NASA is using data from an Indian satellite does not mean others do not have the same capacity to collect such data. It's because NASA has provided the required equipment to India and has a data-sharing agreement with ISRO.

Pakistan already has such a capability in its satellite Paksat r-1 for remote sensing of weather patterns and events.

Although Pakistan currently lacks the satellite launch capability (that India has) but it's working on a Shaheen III design to serve as an SLV.

Pakistan has an active space program with many space scientists and engineers with advanced imaging and remote sensing, data collection and analysis for a variety of applications ranging from weather forecasting to resource management and others as follows:

Agriculture
crop estimation
Water resource management
Mitigation of natural disasters
Land use

Mapping
Surveying
Forestry
Droughts
Desertification studies
Vehicle tracking & fleet management Vehicle management
Environmental monitoring
Climate change

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on May 4, 2012 at 10:21am

Here's an ET report on Supraco's plans for next satellite:

After the successful launch of the communication satellite PAKSAT-IR last year, the country’s space agency, Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), is all set to launch an advanced high resolution remote sensing satellite system (RSSS) technology.

Expanding Pakistan’s presence in space for commercial and strategic purposes, SUPARCO, has sent a proposal to the government for financing of the RSSS project, through which the country can attain imaging facilities, currently used by advanced countries for surveying and mapping of earth.

As part of Space Programme 2040, the proposed satellite, next in the BADAR series, will carry a number of engineering evaluation and scientific experiments including those from Research and Development organisations, academic institutions and other national agencies.

Pakistan had launched its first satellite PAKSAT-1R in collaboration with neighboring country China.

PAKSAT-1R, that was launched in August last year has a design life of 15 years. It provides TV broadcasting, internet and data communication services across South and Central Asia, Eastern Europe, East Africa and the Far East.

PAKSAT-1R project was completed by SUPARCO with the cooperation of China’s Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC).

http://tribune.com.pk/story/374121/pakistan-inches-towards-its-firs...

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