Vietnam's micro satellite launched into space

Pico Dragon, the Made-in-Vietnam micro satellite, was shipped to the International Space Station ( ISS) Sunday to prepare for a mission in space, state-run Vietnam News Agency reported Sunday. Accordingly, the micro satellite, together with three other micro satellites of the United States, was carried by Japan's Kounotori 4 (HTV-4) cargo spacecraft. The two-stage H-2B rocket carrying the HTV-4 ship lifted off at 4:48 am Tokyo time (19:48 GMT Saturday), initiating a five-day journey to the International Space Station. Vietnam's Pico Dragon is programmed to capture images of the earth, collect space environment data and test communication systems, said the report quoting sources from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology. The 10x10x11.35 centimeter cube weighting nearly one kilogram is the first of its kind developed by young Vietnamese engineers and researchers of the National Satellite Center, an affiliate of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology. It is planned to stay at the ISS for two to three months before going into space. In May this year, Vietnam's first remote sensing satellite, VNREDSat-1, was launched into orbit from the Kourou launch pad in Guiana of France.