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Nano satellite makes giant leap for Việt Nam

UPDATE at  九am October  一: Satellite launch postponed

The launch of Việt Nam’s first satellite that was made entirely on home soil has been delayed.

The NanoDragon four-kilogram device was due to blast off from the Uchinoura Space Center in the Japanese town of Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture at  八am Friday morning.

But just moments before lift-off, space engineers pulled the plug due to technical reasons.

It is understood a second attempt will be made at the same time on Saturday morning.

NanoDragon would have been Việt Nam’s third satellite to go into space, although the first made entirely by Vietnamese engineers.

Lê Xuân Huy, Việt Nam National Space Centre Deputy Director,  said on Friday morning after the launch was postponed: “About one minute before launch, Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) decided to pause to check the system.

“After the inspection, the Launch Agency decided to suspend the launch event on October  一. The reason for the pause and the next launch schedule will be announced later by JAXA.”

By Kiều Trinh Hồng Vân

Nano Dragon, the first satellite made in Việt Nam, has boldly gone where no satellite made in Việt Nam has ever gone before.

Just before  八am October  一 (Việt Nam time), Nano Dragon is set to be launched at the Uchinoura Space Centre in Japan. One small step in space, but one giant leap for Việt Nam.

Carried by the Epsilon  五 rocket, the satellite is scheduled to be detached for its lone cruiser at  九.0 三am. 

The  四kg cube satellite took seven years to develop by scientists from the Vietnam National Space Centre (VNSC), a project under the National Science and Technology Program on Space Technology.

Lê Xuân Huy, Deputy General Director of the Centre, told Việt Nam News: “The successful launch of a satellite is a moment of great pride for the developers. This is motivation for us to do more and look forward to the next step if the satellite will work successfully and can co妹妹unicate with ground stations as well as receive and transmit signals to perform our co妹妹ands.”

The satellite is tasked with two important missions. Operating in orbit at an altitude of about  五 六0km it will receive signals to identify vessels, through AIS (Automatic Identification System) and send the signals to the monitoring centre to check the entry and exit of vessels as well as help avoid collisions.

The second mission of Nano Dragon is taking aerial photos to help scientists perfect satellite navigation systems. 

Huy added: “We also placed a camera in the satellite and equipment to control the position of the satellite.

“When the satellite is in its orbit, we will order it to take images of different localities from space.

“The satellite will capture images according to our co妹妹ands and we will use these images to assess the quality of the control system.”

As the first satellite designed and manufactured entirely in the country, without the help of foreign experts as well as the high technology of related manufacturing industries, Nano Dragon is a small but very proud achievement of Việt Nam’s space industry.

The manufacture of satellites has never been easy, especially given the limitations of related industries in Việt Nam. Most of the domestic manufacturers were not interested in building satellites because they are only produced in a single unit and requires high precision.

Finding materials to build it was also a challenge.

“There is some equipment that we wanted to buy but we could not,” Huy said.

“In that case, we had to change our design. We have this same problem for many modules, as we have to design based on what equipment we have, our design becomes complicated.

“In Việt Nam, we haven’t had a facility to design and develop satellites. Every time when we finish a part, we have to send it abroad for testing and bring it back home to develop or adjust.

“The back-and-forth process took a lot of time, especially in this era of COVID.”