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 intoorbit by a VEGA booster rocket on May 7 from the Kourou launch pad,Guiana, France.
VNREDSat-1 is capable of capturing imagesof all areas in the world and it is expected to assist efforts to dealwith flooding, forest fire, oil overflow and other incidents quickly andeffectively.
TheVNREDSat-1 project has a total investment of 55.8 million EUR sourced bythe French Government's Official Development Assistance and theVietnamese side's contribution of nearly 65 billion VND (around 3.2million USD).
The satellite was designed and built by Astrium SAS, an affiliate of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).-VNA