PH finally has a space program of sorts
Rejoice, pinoy space fans – the first ever Filipino microsatellite Diwata, has successfully lifted off of Cape Canaveral, Florida in the US past 11 AM earlier today.
Diwata is a microsatellite that was developed by a team of Filipino scientists and is designed to transmit multi-spectrum images of the PH to a ground receiver in Subic. It’s primarily a weather satellite and will aid in weather forecasting, disaster response and mitigation as well ass crop monitoring.
Since the PH obviously doesn’t have the capacity to launch satellites into space on our own, Diwata was piggy-backed on the payload of a private aerospace company Orbital ATK, using their Cygnus spacecraft.
The small microsatellite is the size of a balik-bayan box and is scheduled to meet up with the International Space Station in two days’ time. It’ll stay on board until the end of April, and will be then launched into space for its orbit at an altitude of 400 kilometers above the Earth.
