Following the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Competition held at Yunuseli Airport as part of the TEKNOFEST Aviation, Space and Technology Festival, TÜBİTAK President Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal made some comments about IMECE, which was sent to orbit on April 15 after being transferred to its launch base in the USA in February.
Mandal said that IMECE, Turkey’s first domestic and national high-resolution imaging satellite, designed and developed by TUBITAK Space, is very valuable to them.
“Can take unlimited images from anywhere in the world”
Reminding that there are observation satellites that Turkey has placed in orbit before, Mandal continued as follows:
“There was RASAT in 2011, there was GÖKTÜRK-2 in 2012, but some of them, especially the camera, were unfortunately procured from abroad or by technology transfer, but now we have a satellite, our observation satellite, of which 90 percent of its components have been made by ourselves. It can take unlimited images from anywhere and is 1,000 kilometers long, 16.7 kilometers wide in a single shot, and has sub-metre high resolution.”
Explaining that the first signal was received from the IMECE satellite, Mandal said:
“Our friends are at the point of taking images at the moment. Hopefully, we expect them to take images as soon as possible, this week, but we are cautious about this. In other words, since we will share the image we will take with the public, we will have a high quality image with high resolution. Again, I see this as very valuable for the development of our country. In other words, we are a country that not only uses this technology, but also produces it with all its components, and also creates the potential to export it, both as a component and as a system platform.”
“I hope we will make a soft landing on the Moon in 2028”
Mandal stated that TÜBİTAK Space continues to work and that their next excitement is the TÜRKSAT 6A communication satellites.
Stating that they will send a domestic and national communication satellite to orbit at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2024, Mandal said, “After that, we will announce our astronaut project very soon and the mission of the first Turkish astronaut in space… Again, our hard landing project on the Moon is in 2024. In other words, we will go to the Moon with our own vehicle and make a hard landing there. Hopefully, in 2028, we will make a soft landing on the Moon.” he said.
Mandal added that they are aiming for Turkey to have its own satellite launch infrastructure instead of receiving services from another country.
