EgyptSat 2 (also called MisrSat 2) was
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
's second
remote sensing
Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Eart ...
Earth observation satellite. It was built by the Russian
RSC Energia
PAO S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (russian: Ракетно-космическая корпорация «Энергия» им. С. П. Королёва, Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya "Energiya" im. S. P. Korolyov ...
and the Egyptian
NARSS while the incorporated cameras and payload was developed by OAO Peleng and NIRUP Geoinformatsionnye Sistemy in Belarus.
A frameless spacecraft had been utilized in EgyptSat 2; it was an innovative technology being first time used in Russia.
EgyptSat 2 was launched on board a
Soyuz-U
The Soyuz-U launch vehicle was an improved version of the original Soyuz rocket. Soyuz-U was part of the R-7 family of rockets based on the R-7 Semyorka missile. Members of this rocket family were designed by the TsSKB design bureau and cons ...
rocket on 16 April 2014 from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome which was a milestone toward establishing the Egyptian Space Agency.
History
EgyptSat 2 was planned to be launched on October 1, 2013 but the launch was put on hold in 2011
following all contact being lost with
EgyptSat 1 due to a failure of its S-Band communication system.
Overview
In 2007,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
made its first attempt to launch a high-resolution surveillance satellite launching the Ukrainian-made
EgyptSat 1, but the satellite failed prematurely after 3 years. However, Egypt continued working with
Yuzhnoye Design Bureau
Pivdenne Design Office ( uk, Державне конструкторське бюро «Південне» ім. М. К. Янгеля , lit=State design bureau "Southern", named after M. K. Yangel, translit=Derzhavne konstruktors ...
for the next project, until it received a bid from
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
to supply a state-of-the-art "eye in the sky". Negotiations lasted for more than four years until Egypt awarded the contract to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
for the development of a high-resolution imaging satellite.
The project was handled by
RKK Energia
PAO S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (russian: Ракетно-космическая корпорация «Энергия» им. С. П. Королёва, Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya "Energiya" im. S. P. Korolyov ...
based on
Korolev on the behalf of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
, codenamed "E-Star".
60 percent of the satellite's hardware was made by
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
.
Russia also trained Egyptian engineers to control the satellite from a ground station near
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
. The cost of the project was rumored to be around 40 million dollar fully funded by the
Egyptian Armed Forces
The Egyptian Armed Forces ( arz, القُوّات المُسَلَّحَة المِصْرِيَّة, alquwwat almusalahat almisria) are the military forces of the Arab Republic of Egypt. They consist of the Egyptian Army, Egyptian Navy, Egyptia ...
.
The spacecraft was shipped to
Baikonur in February 2014 and was launched on April 16, 2014.
EgyptSat 2 was launched into an orbit inclined 51.6 degrees toward the
Equator which means it was only covering areas between 51.6 latitude North in the Northern Hemisphere and 51.6 degrees South latitude in the Southern Hemisphere, which covered the Egyptian territory, but did not cover vast regions of the planet in both hemispheres.
Description
EgyptSat 2 was a hexagonal satellite, equipped with three deployable, fixed solar arrays and nickel-hydrogen batteries, and its optical imaging payload covered the visible and infrared spectral bands, providing a ground resolution of 13.1 feet (four meters) for multispectral imagery and 3.3 feet (one meter) for panchromatic imagery. The satellite's coverage included total coverage of Egypt's land and maritime territory and their environs.
A new and revolutionary technology had been demonstrated first time, as EgyptSat 2 became the first frameless spacecraft created in Russia and the first satellite created by such technology in the history of Russian cosmonautics. The frameless base technology reduces the final assembly of the satellite from six months with several trained professionals and special equipment, to 10 minutes with only two experts, which in turn minimizes effort, time and costs while not compromising the quality of the final product.
Mission
The satellite was supposed to supply the Egyptian government with high-resolution views of Earth for environmental, scientific and military applications.
Data was transmitted through an X-band communications terminal at a rate of 300-600 Mbit/s to ground stations located near
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
and
Aswan
Aswan (, also ; ar, أسوان, ʾAswān ; cop, Ⲥⲟⲩⲁⲛ ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate.
Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the ...
.
According to Tal Dekel, a research fellow at
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...
's
Yuval Ne'eman
Yuval Ne'eman ( he, יובל נאמן, 14 May 1925 – 26 April 2006) was an Israeli theoretical physicist, military scientist, and politician. He was Minister of Science and Development in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was the President o ...
Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, few were aware of the extent of Egypt's satellite program and the satellite was disguised as scientific research but in truth it would be used by the
Egyptian Armed Forces
The Egyptian Armed Forces ( arz, القُوّات المُسَلَّحَة المِصْرِيَّة, alquwwat almusalahat almisria) are the military forces of the Arab Republic of Egypt. They consist of the Egyptian Army, Egyptian Navy, Egyptia ...
as a spying satellite.
EgyptSat 2 acquired its first images on April 30, that released by RSC Energia showing Taylor Bay and
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, Australia.
EgyptSat 2 circularised its orbit at about 720 kilometers height using an electric propulsion system. The operation completed in August 2014.
The total cost of the mission was about $40 million.
Assumed lost and end of mission
On April 14, 2015, the EgyptSat 2 was unresponsive to commands from the Earth and control over the satellite was lost due to a human factor as the main possible cause according to the Russian
Izvestiya
''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in 1917, it was a newspaper of record in the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, and describes i ...
newspaper, citing a source in the
RSC Energia
PAO S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (russian: Ракетно-космическая корпорация «Энергия» им. С. П. Королёва, Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya "Energiya" im. S. P. Korolyov ...
.
While the
National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS) insisted that EgyptSat 2 is still recoverable,
as the head of NARSS Medhat Mokhtar said, "What was reported about is in fact a regular technical failure. It happens every now and then to all the satellites. The problem will be fixed in the next few hours," explaining that, "any failure in control of satellite begins with absence of response to commands from Earth, and the low battery could be the problem, but it will be fixed and control will be fully restored."
EgyptSat 2 has experienced few problems since December 2014, as it lost some of the battery capacity,
also on mid-April 2015, EgyptSat 2 had an attitude control issues, then a failure of the primary and backup computer of the satellite had occurred within 15 seconds of each other and no official information was released by the satellite's operator or manufacturer.
Insurance payout from the loss largely paid for the manufacture and launch in February 2019 of the
EgyptSat-A
EgyptSat-A or MisrSat A is Egypt's third Earth observation satellite following the EgyptSat 1 launched in 2007 and EgyptSat 2 launched in 2014. This satellite was built by the Egyptian National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences ...
replacement satellite.
See also
*
EgyptSat 1
*
National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences
*
Kondor (satellite)
References
{{Orbital launches in 2014
Earth imaging satellites
Spacecraft launched in 2014
Satellites of Egypt
2014 in Egypt