DubaiSat 2 designing in final stage

The images of Japan's large swaths of toppled towns, scanned and zeroed in on the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant as it suffered a nuclear meltdown was taken by DubaiSat-1. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency directly approached the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology, which controls the satellite, and asked for the pictures taken by DubaiSat-1 to piece together a clearer image of the disaster’s impact and a recovery plan. The country's first imaging satellite, DubaiSat-1, was launched in July 2009 from a base in Kazakhstan. Since then, the satellite is sending images of the country four times a day to the institute's listening station in Al Khawaneej, Dubai. It is expected to be functioning for the next six years. Eiast was tapped to provide image data several times a day during Pakistan’s deadly monsoon floods last year. Now the next generation satellite, the DubaiSat-2 is also on the way. Engineers are providing finishing touches to the design of DubaiSat-2, UAE's second imaging satellite, to be launched next year, according to Salem al Marri, Director of the Space Programme at the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology. The design will take into account the needs of different government departments, particularly those involved in urban planning, Marri said. DuabiSat-2 at 300kg, will weigh a third more than its predecessor, and will have a resolution of one metre, compared with 2.5 metres. It will orbit closer to the Earth at a faster speed, and cover 17,000 square metres per day, compared with the 12,000 square metres covered by DubaiSat-1. The DubaiSat-2 is expected to be launched late next year from Yasny in southern Russia. The launch is to be carried out by the Russian company ISC Kosmotras, which launched Dubai Sat-1 two years ago. Al Marri stressed the importance of the images for local government departments in urban planning, coastal monitoring, and tracking the degree or thickness of fog, for instance. Al Marri has also been doing studies with Khalifa University on the effects of desalination plants along the UAE coast.