The National Space Organization in Taiwan unveiled a plan recently to launch the first Taiwanese made satellite, Argo, by 2009. The satellite will be the first of its kind to be totally planned and designed by NSPO and will also use a new high-tech processor, the LEON-3 CPU. All the key components and software for power, data and command processing, and flight control of the spacecraft had been developed in Taiwan. The satellite has been named after a ship in Greek mythology. Argo is scheduled to join the commercially operated RapidEye constellation owned by the RapidEye A.G. in Germany. The system will be capable of recording daily images in every corner of the Earth. These images will be extremely crucial for territory planning, environment monitoring, agriculture and forestry growth observation, and disaster evaluation and analysis.
