Emerging
Space Powers

In 2006 the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) formed the Emirate Institute for the Advancement of Science and Technology (EIAST) with the goal of positioning the UAE at the forefront of space science and technology development. Since then, EIAST has been laser-focused on building up the UAE’s domestic satellite capabilities.

DubaiSat 1, the agency’s first spacecraft, launched in 2009 and captures images at 2.5-meter resolution from low Earth sun-synchronous orbit. The next satellite, DubaiSat 2, launched in 2013 sporting a push-broom camera with Time Delay Integration (TDI) sensors: one panchromatic at a sampling distance of 1-meter and four multispectral bands at 4-kilometers. EIAST is now applying what its engineers learned with these spacecraft to build KhalifaSat, the agency’s most capable satellite yet.

“For DubaiSat 1 we worked with the Satrec Initiative in South Korea with about 30 percent participation on our end,” says EIAST Director General H.E. Yousuf Al Shaibani. For DubaiSat 2, however, EIAST put together a core team of UAE engineers and experts to build this satellite with 70 percent participation. Now, EIAST is taking it to the next level.

EIAST is developing a core team of Emirati engineers to keep the UAE in a leadership position within the Middle East’s space related programs, and to advance the country’s socio-economic plans. Al Shaibani says EIAST provides several government entities with data from DubaiSat 1 and 2, which they no longer have to outsource.

In building up these domestic capabilities, international collaboration has been very important for EIAST. The Satrec Initiative of South Korea has been the institute’s most fruitful collaboration. The agency is also working with Airbus Defence and Space on a first generation High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS) system, and engaged the National Space Agency of Kazakhstan in an exchange of scientific skills and human resources in the fields of remote sensing, space communications and global navigational systems.

Al Shaibani says a fourth, 100 percent Emirati-built satellite is EIAST’s next goal, and that the agency is not afraid to dream big. He expressed enthusiasm at the accomplishments of the Curiosity Mars rover, the Rosetta Comet mission and the upcoming ExoMars spacecraft.

“We in the region are definitely not far behind,” he says. “If you think about EIAST’s own accomplishments — launching two UAE owned satellites just four years apart, with plans to launch a third one, which we are designing and building ourselves — who knows where space science and technology will take us next. I think in this sense it is safe to say nothing is impossible.”

South Africa is currently finalizing its national space program to provide a vision for the country that stretches to 2030. Formed by the South African National Space Agency Act 36 of 2008, the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) was officially created in 2010. Three years later the agency launched South Africa’s first CubeSat, TshepisoSAT, also known as Za-Cube1, which continues to provide scientific data to universities and to the agency. But SANSA will not stop there; it has more satellites planned for the near future.

“SANSA aims to finalize design and systems requirement for our next satellite in order to begin the construction phase of the satellite in sync with developing the local space industry,” says Sandile Malinga, CEO of SANSA. “There are improved targets for increased research outputs and international launch support services. Our aim is that by 2020 we would have a new wholly designed and functional Earth observation satellite in orbit along with a few more CubeSats and a growing local space economy.”

SANSA’s 2020 Earth observation satellite is EO SAT1. The satellite was previously known as the ZA-African Resource Management Constellation (ARMC) 1 satellite, ZA ARMC1. South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Kenya founded the ARMC constellation for the purpose of addressing core remote sensing needs of the continent’s decision-makers. EO SAT1 will contribute to the constellation but is primarily being developed for South Africa while efforts are made to bring more African countries onboard for the regional system.

“Developments in space technologies and knowledge is evolving at a rapid pace and it would not serve us well to reinvent the wheel, so collaborations are encouraged and supported to enable rapid progress with maximum benefit,” he says.

SANSA’s next Earth observation satellite also includes a strong focus on developing a local space industry. Malinga anticipates South Africa’s next satellite will create space industry jobs and build up the country’s national talent base. SANSA and the government of South Africa see space as a way to shift the nation’s economy toward one that is more knowledge-based rather than resource-based. Malinga says there is growing enthusiasm among students and young professionals about space-related careers in South Africa too.

“As a young space agency we are seeing a growing interest in the scientists, engineers and technicians who want to be a part of this growing area of opportunity in the country. SANSA also enables our citizens to access other space companies and agencies, which offers greater opportunity for our citizens,” he says.

In 2007, Jonathan Hung founded the Singapore Space and Technology Association (SSTA) to stimulate the country’s satellite industry. While Singapore has an economic space office, it has no specific agency dedicated to developing the field. Hung saw potential for industry to propel Singapore to become one of the world’s most advanced space hubs.

“I see the commercial companies taking a huge interest in moving the bar further out. That’s very inspiring because in the past, programs were confined to government agencies. With commercial companies taking the lead now, I think that’s going to be another game-changer,” he says.

“[Going] from one experimental satellite to six satellites next year is quite a big jump. It is a showcase that there are a lot of opportunities in satellite here in Singapore that have both the commercial efforts to spearhead it, commercial industry to support it, as well as strong government backing,” says Hung.

Lots of multi-national corporations have had a presence in Singapore, but not always a space-related one. Hung says it has been encouraging to see U.S. companies team so quickly with Asian partners in a brief span of two to three years. SSTA has helped facilitate collaboration between companies both domestically and internationally on Research and Development (R&D), prototyping and knowledge sharing.

“Collaboration is very important,” he adds. “It is not like the U.S., Europe, China or India where there is a huge domestic base. A lot of it would be export-driven so our industry needs to collaborate with the big boys out there in the market to ensure that we remain very competitive and to make sure we are developing our own unique competitive advantages to succeed in the space industry.”

While by no means a newcomer to space as a nation, the United Kingdom Space Agency formed a mere five years ago, back in 2010. Since then the agency has embarked on a mission requiring a lot of chutzpa: grow the U.K.’s space sector to comprise 10 percent of the global space economy by 2030.

‘This sector has been growing for the last seven to eight years at a very consistent rate. It’s something that hasn’t been widely known, but the sector has known it,” says Alice Bunn, director of policy at the U.K. Space Agency.

She adds that the goal, which includes the creation of 100,000 new jobs, was chosen because it strikes the right balance between ambition and achievability. Much of this growth, according to Bunn, is downstream in the applications and uses of space technologies. Space happens to provide the best vantage point to provide needed services.

The Agência Espacial Brasileira (AEB), in collaboration with the China Academy of Space Technology, successfully built and launched the Chinese-Brazilian Earth Resource Satellite 4 (CBERS 4) on a Long March 4B. The CBERS 4 satellite is a replacement for CBERS 3, which was lost in a Long March 4B rocket failure in 2013. The two countries did not skip a beat after the incident, instead accelerating CBERS 4 from 2015 to December 2014.

“AEB is committed for the next years to completing our autonomy on space access the best way we can, and to develop space instruments that can answer the needs of our population in areas such Earth observation, telecommunication, weather forecasting, natural disasters, science and technology and others,” says José Raimundo Braga Coelho, president of AEB.

The Brazilian Space Agency was created in 1994, and is guiding Brazil to develop domestic space capabilities. In addition to the CBERS program, Brazil is jointly designing the Satélite Argentino Brasileño para Información del Mar (SABIA-Mar) spacecraft in partnership with Argentina for studying the ocean environment in the Southern Atlantic. On the telecommunications front, AEB is working with Thales Alenia Space to develop the Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications Satellite (SGDC) for military and civil telecommunications.

Coelho says Brazil’s space activities are split between developing satellite data for improving human quality of life, and developing science and technology to better understand the universe. He emphasized the need to pursue both concurrently, saying that the two are in a way related to each other. AEB is using partnerships, building up relationships with academia and tomorrow’s engineers, and carefully charting the path to make Brazil the standout space-faring nation in South America.