The Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) was a

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

program carried by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of the Philippines in cooperation with the Tohoku and Hokkaido Universities of Japan.

Background

Hokkaido University , or , is a Japanese national university in Sapporo, Hokkaido. It was the fifth Imperial University in Japan, which were established to be the nation's finest institutions of higher education or research. Hokkaido University is considered ...

and

Tohoku University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

initiated a project to send 50 microsatellites into space by 2050. The project will photograph aftermaths of natural disasters, partnering with governments, universities and other organizations based in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

, and

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. Two satellites are commissioned for the Philippine government. Diwata-1 is the first satellite of the venture and is also a part of the Department of Science and Technology's Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Micro-Satellite (PHL-Microsat) Program which was initiated in December 2014 by the government agency. The satellite is an updated version of the

Raijin-2 Raijin-2 (''Rising-2'') is a Japanese micro-satellite launched in 2014. The satellite is built around a 10 cm diameter, 1m focal length Cassegrain telescope and features the following instruments: * HPT - main telescope with 5m resolution ...

, which was developed by the two Japanese universities. The satellite was deployed from the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

on April 27, 2016. Diwata-1 was replaced by

Diwata-2 Diwata-2 or Diwata-2B is a Philippine microsatellite launched on October 29, 2018. It is the first satellite launched under the STAMINA4Space program. Development The satellite was developed by 11 scholars under the Philippine Department of Scie ...

sometime in 2018. The Philippine Department of Science and Technology (DOST) announced on June 29, 2017 that two

CubeSats A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

or nanosatellites will be launch in 2018. One of these satellites was

Maya-1 Maya-1 was a Filipino nanosatellite. It was developed under the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite program (PHL-Microsat) and was jointly implemented by the University of the Philippines and the Department of Science and T ...

, a nanosatellite developed under the Kyushu Institute of Technology-led Birds-2 project, was launched to space. The equipment is the first nanosatellite of the Philippines and is also placed under the PHL-Microsat program. It is to be deployed from the ISS sometime in August 2018, On August 10, Maya-1 was deployed from the ISS along with satellites from Bhutan and Malaysia. The PHL-Microsat program was officially succeeded by the

STAMINA4Space Program The Space Technology and Applications Mastery, Innovation and Advancement (abbreviated and stylized as STAMINA4Space) is a space technology program by the Philippine government. It is considered as the successor program to the Philippine Scienti ...

in August 2018. The last satellite launched under the PHL-Microsat program, Maya-1 was decommissioned in November 2020.

Phases

The project is divided into five sub-projects or phases.

Mission summary

External links

References

{{Philippine space program Space program of the Philippines Space program of Japan Department of Science and Technology (Philippines) Earth observation satellites