NanoDragon satellite officially transferred to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on August 17(Photo: Vietnam National Space Centre) The centre said that it received a notification from the JapanAerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on the launching plan on August 20.
The NanoDragon satellite, a nano-layer cubesat satellitewhich weighs 3,8 kilograms, was developed by the VNSC.
Japan’s Epsilon rocket is expected to launch NanoDragon from the Japanese southern prefecture of Kagoshima. NanoDragon is among nine satellitesthat the rocket carries. The rest are made by Japan. NanoDragon is expected to be launched intoorbit at the height of about 560km.
Earlier, NanoDragon satellite was delivered to Japan onAugust 11 and tested at Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima prefecture fromAugust 16-17 before being officially transferred to the JAXA for launching under the second"Innovative satellite technology demonstration" programme.
The satellite is the product of a project to design, manufacture, launch andtest operation of a nano-sized microsatellite under the national space scienceand technology programme in the 2016-2020 period.
The process of researching, designing, integrating, and testing the satellite'sfunctions was carried out completely in Vietnam by VNSC researchers.
The satellite was developed with the purpose ofdemonstrating it could use micro-satellite beam technology to receive theAutomatic Identification System (AIS) signal to track and monitor activities atsea.
Previously, the VNSC also successfully developed the 1-kg-microsatellitePicoDragon and the 50-kg satellite MicroDragon, which were launched into orbitin 2013 and 2019, respectively./.
VNA
