Vietnam: The Government of Vietnam selected Belgian consortium which is led by SPACEBEL, a software engineering company operating in the Space and Earth monitoring applications sectors, for its second microsatellite for earth observations, ‘VNREDSAT-1B’. Vietnam will develop this microsatellite through its VNREDSAT (Vietnam Natural Resources Environment and Disaster monitoring small Satellite) programme.
SPACEBEL is in charge of the mission and system studies, design and development of the entire satellite software package as well as the development and deployment of the ground segment.
The feasibility studies for the final design of the optical payload – for high-resolution and multispectral or hyperspectral images – are in progress until October. After technical and legal negotiations between the Vietnam and SPACEBEL, the contract will be signed in Ho-Chi Minh-ville in March 2012.
VNREDSAT-1B, planned for launch in 2016, will be combined with the first remote sensing microsatellite, to provide Vietnam with a regular and quick monitoring of the environment in South-East Asia. It is pertinent to mention here that multispectral VNREDSAT-1A, using the French Myriade bus, is in construction at EADS Astrium, Toulouse for a planned launch in 2013-2014.
Source: www.spacemart.com
