A new project to produce satellite VNREDSat-1B is being carried out under the monitoring of Belgium’s Spacebel Company, following the successful launching of Vietnam’s first remote sensing satellite VNREDSat-1.

The Belgium-made small satellite is expected to be launched into orbit in 2017, Lao dong newspaper reported on May 9.

VNREDSat-1B belongs to PROBA (Project for On-Board Autonomy) series, in which PROBA-V is the latest model.

Vietnam’s first remote sensing VNREDSat-1 was launched into orbit by a VEGA booster rocket on May 7 from the Kourou launch pad, Guiana, France.

VNREDSat-1 is capable of capturing images of all areas in the world and it is expected to assist efforts to deal with flooding, forest fire, oil overflow and other incidents quickly and effectively.

The VNREDSat-1 project has a total investment of 55.8 million EUR sourced by the French Government's Official Development Assistance and the Vietnamese side's contribution of nearly 65 billion VND (around 3.2 million USD).

The satellite was designed and built by Astrium SAS, an affiliate of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).-VNA