Taiwan's New Satellite on its Way to America

December 2, 2003
Taipei Times, Taiwan

Taiwan's New Satellite on its Way to America

HANDLE WITH CARE: A carefully wrapped ROCSAT-2 was taken to CKS
International Airport yesterday and will arrive in Los Angeles today. It
will be launched on Jan. 17 
  
Taiwan's second satellite, ROCSAT-2, was taken to CKS International Airport
yesterday, wrapped in a nitrogen-filled container weighing more than 2
tonnes. 
 
Taiwan's second satellite, ROCSAT-2, which left the National Space Program
Office (NSPO) in Hsinchu yesterday, is expected to be launch-ed on schedule
in six weeks from California.

A trailer with cushion facilities took the 750kg satellite, packaged in a
2,100kg container displaying Taiwan's flag, to CKS International Airport in
Taoyuan.

NSPO spokesmen said yesterday that a China Airlines Boeing 747 would carry
the satellite and related equipment, weighing 14,295kg, directly to Los
Angeles today. After the flight of just more than 10 hours, it will take
another six hours to move the satellite by truck to Vandenberg Air Force
Base.

"All the way to the base, vibration has to be limited to a certain level,"
Chern Jeng-shing, program manager of the ROCSAT-2 project, said at a press
conference held before the satellite left Hsinchu yesterday.

A team of NSPO scientists and engineers arrived at the base yesterday to
prepare for the launch on Jan. 17.

Since last Thursday, when the satellite was wrapped, nitrogen has been
injected into the container to ensure stable conditions for the long
journey.

According to Bobby Yu, general manager of China Airlines' cargo sales and
services department, the airline's midway station in Anchorage, Alaska,
would be bypassed to minimize the risks.

Richard Shen, general manager of Global Fritz Logistics Services, said
special customs arrangements were made to facilitate the transportation.

When it arrives at Vandenberg Air Force Base, the satellite will be
thoroughly tested for three days. The satellite will be coupled with a
Taurus rocket, a four-stage, ground-launched vehicle, at a launch site
operated by Orbital Sciences Corp, and should be ready at least 13 days
prior to the launch.

Taiwan chose to launch the ROCSAT-2 from the US instead of India, which
offered a half-price deal. 

The launch services in the US cost about NT$ 1.3 billion, according to the
NSPO.

Lee Lou-chuang, president of National Applied Research laboratories and NSPO
director, said that putting ROCSAT-2 into orbit would have been impossible
had it not been for the integration of governmental resources and private
efforts from the space industry.

"ROCSAT-2 satellite will be the first to observe rare phenomena like
lighting-induced red sprites, upwardly discharging blue jets and gigantic
jets," Lee said.

Being different from its predecessor, ROCSAT-1, which was launched in
January 1999 and had a strictly scientific purpose, ROCSAT-2 will also have
more down-to-earth applications involving remote-sensing technologies.

NSPO officials stressed yesterday that the ROCSAT-2 project, costing NT$4.7
billion in total, would further enhance Taiwan's abilities to predict
natural disas-ters and map state-owned land. It will be able to take clear
pictures of objects on the ground as small as 2m across.

The satellite is designed to orbit the earth 14 times a day, including two
passes over Taiwan, 891km above the earth's surface.

Representatives of the Astrium Company of France, the NSPO's main contractor
on the ROCSAT-2 project, said yesterday that everything had gone according
to plan since the cooperation began in November 1999. 



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