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ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday announced the launch of Pakistan’s indigenously developed 285kg PakTES-1A observatory satellite in July.
Fitted with sensors and cameras, PakTES-1A will remain stationary 610km in space and its position relative to the sun will not change.
Foreign Office spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal congratulated Pakistani scientists in a tweet, saying they had made Pakistanis proud.
Known as the Remote Sensing Satellite (RSS) it can be used to study various features of Earth, determine mineral deposits, and depending on the kinds of sensors and gadgets fitted, the RSS technology can also help study impacts of climate change such as recession of melting glaciers, green house gasses, detect forest fires and even solve problems related to agriculture as well as forestry, besides a whole range of passive and active tasks.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs makes the announcement
The navigation technology for the satellite was acquired from China back in 2012.
Upon contact, both the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) and the national space agency, the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), were hesitant to share details of this positive development.
India has been launching such observatory satellite since the 1970s.
However, former minister for science and technology Dr Attaur Rehman was forthcoming in his comments and also congratulated Pakistani scientists, calling the launch of the RSS next month a proud moment and a positive step that scientists have been able to develop and launch its satellite.
“Unlike the complex, heavier and bigger communication satellites, observatory satellite is a simple technology and can be used for a range of purposes depending on the types of sensing equipment it comes fitted with because there are various kinds of remote sensing satellites. It can also study electromagnetic waves and radiation emitted from Earth,” Dr Rehman said.
According to him, Pakistan is way behind in the region in launching satellites into space and at least 25 to 30 years behind India.
Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2018
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Comments (83) Closed
Jun 25, 2018 07:49am
China helped Pak to launch that satellite, earlier Pak denied getting information through Indian Satellites. The umbrella of hesitation is no good, Pak must move forward and cooperate with India, and can also continue its progress with China.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:06am
Why compete when you can collaborate ?? India may be way ahead in the technology space , tha can not the reason to refuse to work together .
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Jun 25, 2018 08:11am
Pakistan was the first nation in South Asia to send a rocket into orbit. Thank you Dr Abdus Salam and his team for SUPARCO. Congrats Pakistan.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:21am
Why compare with India in the news. India is three times bigger than us.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:22am
Congrats. But why Ministry of Foreign Affairs announces? The way it is done looks like whole work by Iron brother and not Pakistan.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:22am
Better late then sorry, good job.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:23am
well done at least we started ...InShaAllah soon will compete and victorious in field of satellite ..Long life Pakistan
congratulation team Suparco and ISPR
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Jun 25, 2018 08:23am
The building of the satellite has been taken help from China.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:25am
Who is going to launch the satellite, in the space, no doubt China.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:40am
This is positive development, :)
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Jun 25, 2018 08:41am
Given all the secrecy, I have my doubts how much of the design and manufacture was actually 'indigenous'.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:43am
Too late but it's never too late. If we make a commitment, we can at least follow our neighbors China and India who have been successfully launching their satellites for decades,though we can't compete with them as their budget is huge but we need to stay steady and keep trying our best.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:51am
Heartiest congratulations to Pakistan on this momentous occasion.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:52am
Hearty congratulations from me India. This is the right area of competition where through science and technology comon man will benefit. And who knows we can do collaborative missions in future
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Jun 25, 2018 08:52am
Hearty Congratulations to brilliant Pakistani People, Better late than never, welcome to the family.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:53am
Good work. Well done.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:54am
Always comparing with India. Better to compare with Bangladesh or Afghanistan, Pakistan might feel better.
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Jun 25, 2018 08:57am
Well done , that's the way to go.
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Jun 25, 2018 09:00am
Great going.
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Jun 25, 2018 09:01am
Good initiative...Way to go.
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Jun 25, 2018 09:09am
Why Foreign Affairs???? Is this a domain of Foreign Affairs? Where is Ministry of science and technology or.....??
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Jun 25, 2018 09:15am
Love and Happiness from India for all our brothers across the border..
May you grow further in all spheres of life.. Especially science and technology...
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Jun 25, 2018 09:16am
great work Pakistani scientist and engineers,
now lets see how long it takes for india to copy the same from us
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Jun 25, 2018 09:24am
Yes we are observing and any threat will be dealt with Iron hand.
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Jun 25, 2018 09:38am
Cong. Also I think it will be more bigger news when you launch it and then open in world.
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Jun 25, 2018 09:41am
Congratulations Pak, this is great news. Good wishes from India.
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Jun 25, 2018 09:44am
very good development
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Jun 25, 2018 09:51am
Enemy beware, we are watching.
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Jun 25, 2018 09:54am
Pakistan on its way to become a premier space faring nation, leaving others in dust.
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Jun 25, 2018 10:01am
Congrats and warm wishes from across the border.
And one more thing
No need to compare yourself with anyone
Every country has to start somewhere
In future , this Pakistani space program will achieve great heights .
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Jun 25, 2018 10:02am
Indegeneosly ? Within months after declaring the intent ??? Smell something fishy!!! Otherwise a great initiative which will create jobs and business opportunities...
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Jun 25, 2018 10:06am
I will Congrats Pakistan, Once the Satellite successfully launched.
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Jun 25, 2018 10:18am
Good job! cry India cry!!
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Jun 25, 2018 10:21am
A positive step
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Jun 25, 2018 10:23am
Congratulations. But it is NOT stationary. To be geo stationary it has to have an altitude of around 23000 miles. This is sun synchronous satellite. Also, who is launching this satellite? Is it China?
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Jun 25, 2018 10:24am
@taimoor khan And the enemy was watching us for decades. So what is the point?
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Jun 25, 2018 10:29am
Good news...congratulations!
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Jun 25, 2018 10:40am
Yeah , We have a great joint space program with China, infact it is the most advanced in the world,we will showcase our achievements in future, but will be hidden now, Chinese and Pakistani cosmonauts will be the first to land on Mars and beyond, New Pakistan will be established on Titan before 2060.Pakistanis are getting jointly trained with Chinese and Russians at two places in China and Russian federation.
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Jun 25, 2018 10:42am
@Sachin Tandon You can congrajulate now, it will be 100% successful, unlike India's history of frequent accidents .
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Jun 25, 2018 10:56am
good for your country.
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Jun 25, 2018 10:58am
U mentioned all the purposes for the satellite but did not named the primary purpose.....
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Jun 25, 2018 11:01am
@Biswajit Definitely you are, there is no shame in learning from others. Especially our brother country on the side.
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Jun 25, 2018 11:19am
@taimoor khan I can bet my entire salary that you have not read the article. Any more bets on this????
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Jun 25, 2018 11:29am
Hearty Congratulations Pakistan..
Its indeed heartening to see our brothers achieving in Space Technology. Kudos to the team and Pakistan.
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Jun 25, 2018 11:48am
Congratulations from India......
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Jun 25, 2018 11:50am
Very positive news from Pakistan. Just like India cannot compare herself with US in space technology, Indian achievements cannot be comparable with Pakistan. Pakistan has taken baby steps towards space science & technology in her own way. May I congratulate to entire Pakistan nation on this big news. I wish Pakistan all the success.
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Jun 25, 2018 12:06pm
indians are acting here like they have been leading world in space technology, while they have been given open help from america but yet they haven't been able to tap the facilities provided to atleast half of the usability. Yes Pakistan has for the start acquired the navigation technology from China like india did from america and russia; the actual comptetion starts now. a 40 years technology versus hardly 5 years technology work. Lets see who is smart ahead...more to come from Pakistan and we have put those international haters in shock after this satellite launch.
Hail Pakistan
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Jun 25, 2018 12:39pm
Outstanding. Well-done.
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Jun 25, 2018 12:52pm
@Imtiaz Ali Khan . This ingormation seems to be classified . Thanks for sharing it
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Jun 25, 2018 12:57pm
@Deran Baig: As you can see from the comments most Indians are very happy and pleased to welcome you to the modern age of science!
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Jun 25, 2018 01:00pm
@Deran Baig: Is that evident from all the happy messages you see here from the Indian readers?
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Jun 25, 2018 01:24pm
@Zak ; Its acquired technology from China and Indian is indigenous .So to develop own technology it may fail some time but the knowledge from that failure help a lot.people learn more from failure than from success.
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Jun 25, 2018 02:27pm
@Zak Hidden joint space program & most advanced in the world too sounds great brother but far away from reality, your thinking of Chinese and Pakistani cosmonauts will be the first to land on Mars and beyond feels like a dream when china is still struggling to send even a satellite on mars and hope your wishful thinking come true to establish New Pakistan on Titan but first get rid of water scarcity in this Pakistan by building required dams before 2060
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Jun 25, 2018 02:35pm
Substandard satellite will be a big failure.
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Jun 25, 2018 03:20pm
Congratulations to our scientists and initiating this project. If anyone knows our history, in half the time,we will catch up and surpass all in the region.
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Jun 25, 2018 03:27pm
@Baloch Every country has right to develop it's satellite field . We should not feel insecure.
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Jun 25, 2018 03:34pm
@RationalBabu Indian readers leaving positive comments are very few compare to the amount leaving bad comments and celebrate every time they hear something negative in the news about Pakistan, anyways we still thank to those who has expressed happiness for us on this occasion.
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Jun 25, 2018 03:53pm
Well done Pakistani scientists. Now it is going in right direction.
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Jun 25, 2018 04:06pm
Extremely extremely proud of Pakistan. Truly a unique and brilliant emerging nation.
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Jun 25, 2018 05:25pm
Good move. It should have been announced by Ministry of science.
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Jun 25, 2018 10:10pm
welcome to the race, Pakistan . Come on lets race for progress!!
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Jun 26, 2018 12:05am
Good news.....Felicitation!
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Jun 26, 2018 02:47am
@Balakrishnan The best is yet to come and lots to come.
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Jun 26, 2018 02:47am
@Biswajit Reason is UN kashmir plebiscite.
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Jun 26, 2018 12:10pm
@khan I admire your spirit, this is the field, where both India & Pakistan should have big competition. I wish all the best & dare to accept the challenge.
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Jun 26, 2018 02:05pm
Congratulations and good wishes to Pakistan. Good achievement.
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Jun 26, 2018 04:00pm
@Baloch , correction, it actually is 10 x
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Jun 26, 2018 04:54pm
Commendable pursuit. And, that would be science and technology. Hope little by little Pakistan moves away from radicalism and joins the global science race for better material prosperity and increased quality of life.
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Jun 26, 2018 05:00pm
Congratulations! This is the real path to move on. Good luck Pakistan!
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Jun 26, 2018 08:20pm
Congrats Pakistan and its people... keep engaging youths in science
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Jun 26, 2018 08:27pm
At 610 km height, a satellite cannot be stationary.
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Jun 26, 2018 09:43pm
@Magnanimous approach : Every single request from India should be refused.
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Jun 26, 2018 09:45pm
@Biswajit : why cooperate? Why India does not cooperate on Kashmir issue?
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Jun 27, 2018 04:43am
@Raju Patel No need for challenge. We compete with the best, not just with neighbours.Our goals are much higher.
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Jun 27, 2018 07:04am
Can we provide clean drinking water and continuous electricity to the people of Pakistan before we start launching satellites to determine the mineral deposits and glaciers
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Jun 27, 2018 07:07am
What will make Pakistan proud is their governments working to eliminate the basic issues of the citizens of Pakistan.I'm all for technology, but investing money and resources in projects like this one does not do a thing for people who continue to get sick and suffer from lack of basic needs like clean drinking water
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Jun 27, 2018 08:43am
@Zak Is that supposed to be a joke?
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Jun 27, 2018 08:45am
Good Luck, at-least they have started working on technology
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Jun 27, 2018 10:19am
Best of luck
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Jun 27, 2018 10:44am
@Biswajit Pakistan has already launched their Rahbar series satellites in 1980s, SUPARCO is fully capable, for the task, delaying is due to budget allocation.
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Jun 27, 2018 10:55am
congrats pakistan
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Jun 27, 2018 10:56am
@Magnanimous approach why would India co coperate when it can gain nothing from this Co operation?
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Jun 27, 2018 11:57am
Best luck to Pakistan from India. Some of my fellow Indians have been chiding Pakistan. Lets understand that a long journey starts with a small step. There is no shame if China has helped Pakistan. Every nation has taken something from others. Even USA started its space program by using basic technology of German V-II. We too got some initial help from Russia, but then went on to develop our own tech when USA sanctions denied technology to us. Pakistan can also develop its own tech. So, best luck once again.
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