Philippine space program
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The space program of the Philippines is currently maintained by the
Philippine Space Agency The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) is the national space agency of the Philippines. The unified space agency is defined by the Philippine Space Act (Republic Act No. 11363) which was signed into law on August 8, 2019, by President Rodrigo Du ...
(PhilSA) together with various agencies under the
Department of Science and Technology Department of Science and Technology may refer to: *Department of Science and Technology (Australia), an Australian Government department between November 1980 and December 1984 * Department of Science and Technology (India) * Department of Science ...
(DOST). The space program includes space research and development, and is funded through the National SPACE Development Program (NSDP) by the DOST and received an initial budget of ₱1 billion in 2020. The Philippines attempted to establish a formal space program in the 1960s, during the term of President
Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...
. A joint-program with the United States was proposed for the purpose of monitoring typhoons in Asia. However such plans did not push through. The Philippine Communications Satellite was established in the same decade which provided satellite communications in Asia. Development continued in the late 80s led by the private sector, with the country's first satellites, Agila-1 which was originally launched as an Indonesian satellite. A decade later, the Mabuhay Satellite Corporation entered into service Agila-2, the first Filipino-owned satellite to be launched to space, which deployed into orbit by Chinese Chang Zheng 3B rocket and was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the Sichuan province on 20 August 1997. It would be almost two decades before the Philippines would launch another satellite into space when government scientists from DOST and researchers from the University of the Philippines partnered with the Tohoku and Hokkaido Universities of Japan under the
PHL-microsat program The Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) was a satellite program carried by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of the Philippines in cooperation with the Tohoku and Hokkaido Universities of Japan ...
to launch
Diwata-1 Diwata-1 also known as PHL-Microsat-1 was a Philippine microsatellite launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on March 23, 2016, and was deployed into orbit from the ISS on April 27, 2016. It was the first Philippine microsatellite an ...
, the first
microsatellite A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. ...
designed and constructed by Filipinos and was deployed into orbit on from the International Space Station (ISS) on April 27, 2016. The Philippines in cooperation with foreign space agencies such as NASA and
JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...
were able to deploy develop and launch two additional small-scale satellites,
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 ...
and Maya-1, with plans to launch additional satellites by 2022. The Philippine space program was largely decentralized until the establishment of the Philippine Space Agency in 2019.


Organization

Prior to the creation of the PhilSA, several government agencies under the DOST ran the country's space program: namely, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA), and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC). The DOST and the
Manila Observatory The Manila Observatory is a non-profit research institute housed on the campus of the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, Philippines. It was founded by the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, in 1865 as the Observatorio Meteo ...
crafted a 10-year masterplan in 2012 to make the Philippines a "space-capable country" by 2022. New programs and future space missions will be directed by the newly created Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA).


History


Origins

The
Manila Observatory The Manila Observatory is a non-profit research institute housed on the campus of the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, Philippines. It was founded by the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, in 1865 as the Observatorio Meteo ...
was established during the
Spanish colonial period Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
in 1865 and was the only formal
meteorological Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...
and astronomical research and services institution in the Philippines and remained so until the creation of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) in 1972.


Marcos era

Efforts to establish a Philippine space program started as early as the 1960s, when the government built an Earth satellite receiving station. US President
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
discussed with then-
Philippine President The president of the Philippines ( fil, Pangulo ng Pilipinas, sometimes referred to as ''Presidente ng Pilipinas'') is the head of state, head of government and chief executive of the Philippines. The president leads the executive branch of t ...
Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...
in 1966 about the possibility of establishing a joint US–Philippine space program to monitor storms in Asia. If such plans had pushed through it would have been the first time Asians would have gotten involved in space activities. The Philippine Communications Satellite (Philcomsat) was established within the same decade when the Marcos government built an Earth satellite receiving station. Philcomsat was a founding member of
Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...
, an international satellite consortium. It also had an exclusive franchise for satellite communication in Southeast Asia, as well as in Korea and Japan. It was also responsible for providing the equipment which enabled people in Asia to watch the Apollo 11 launch, which took place on July 16, 1969. The wholly government-owned company became a private corporation in 1982. Marcos also by the virtue of Presidential Decree No. 286 created the Philippine Aerospace Development Corporation (PADC) a Philippine state owned aerospace and defense technology corporation attached to the Department of National Defense, to establish a ''"reliable aviation and aerospace industry"'' in the Philippines, design, manufacture and sell "all forms" of aircraft, as well as to develop indigenous capabilities in the maintenance, repair, and modification of aviation equipment. On April 23, 1980, the Philippines became one of the initial 11 signatories to the Moon Treaty.


PASI and Mabuhay's satellite ventures

In 1974, the Philippines planned to use satellites to improve communications. The leasing of satellites from
Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...
was considered but it was later decided to lease capacity from the Indonesian Palapa system. There were interests for a national communication satellite but initiatives to obtain one did not start until 1994, when the Philippine Agila Satellite Inc. (PASI), a consortium of 17 companies, was established to operate and purchase domestic satellites. The Mabuhay Satellite Corporation (MSC), another consortium, was formed in the same year by PLDT, which was a former member of PASI. PLDT was the largest member of PASI before its departure from the consortium. MSC was composed of numerous domestic telecommunications and broadcasting companies, along with Indonesia-based Pasifik Satelit Nusantara and China-based Everbright Group. Then, President
Fidel V. Ramos Fidel Valdez Ramos (, ; March 18, 1928 – July 31, 2022), popularly known as FVR and Eddie Ramos, was a Filipino general and politician who served as the 12th president of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998. He was the only career military ...
expressed his desire for a Philippine satellite to be in orbit in time for the
APEC Summit The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC ) is an inter-governmental forum for 21 member economies in the Pacific Rim that promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
to be held in the country in November 1996. MSC complied with the acquisition of Indonesian satellite Palapa B-2P from Pasifik Satelit Nusantara. The satellite was moved to a new orbital slot on August 1, 1996. The satellite was renamed Agila-1 and became the first satellite in orbit to be owned by the country. MSC launched the country's second satellite,
Agila-2 ABS-3, formerly ABS-5, was initially named Agila 2 after the Philippine eagle, before being acquired by ABS (formerly known as Asia Broadcast Satellite). Launched in 1997, the satellite provided telecommunications services for Mabuhay Satellite C ...
, with the assistance of China. The communications satellite was launched through the Long March 3B at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on August 19, 1997. The satellite was acquired by
Asia Broadcast Satellite ABS, formerly Asia Broadcast Satellite, is a global satellite operator incorporated in Bermuda. Operating 5 communication satellites, the satellite fleet currently covers 93% of the world's population including the Americas, Africa, Asia Pacific ...
in 2011 and was renamed to ABS-3.


PHL-Microsat and Birds-2 programs

The DOST initiated the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) program to send two microsatellites in 2016 and 2017. The effort is part of the country's disaster risk management program. A receiving station will also be built in the country. The efforts were part of a bigger project, together with seven other Asian countries aside from Japan and the Philippines, to create a network of about 50 microsatellites. The first satellite under the PHL-Microsat program
Diwata-1 Diwata-1 also known as PHL-Microsat-1 was a Philippine microsatellite launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on March 23, 2016, and was deployed into orbit from the ISS on April 27, 2016. It was the first Philippine microsatellite an ...
, the first satellite designed and assembled by Filipinos, with cooperation from Hokkaido University and Tohoku University. One of the major goals of the PHL-Microsat program is to boost the progress on the creation of the
Philippine Space Agency The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) is the national space agency of the Philippines. The unified space agency is defined by the Philippine Space Act (Republic Act No. 11363) which was signed into law on August 8, 2019, by President Rodrigo Du ...
. The satellite was deployed from the International Space Station on April 27, 2016. This satellite was succeeded on October 29, 2018, 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 ...
, which was launched directly into orbit from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.The first nanosatellite under the Birds-2 program, Maya-1 was also deployed from the ISS in the Japanese
Kibo module Kibo may refer to: * Kibō (ISS module), Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), component of the International Space Station * Kibo, a volcanic cone forming the main summit of Mount Kilimanjaro * An alias of James Parry, who as "Kibo" became a cult f ...
along with two other satellites from Bhutan and Malaysia on August 10, 2018.


Creation of the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA)

Despite these advancements, the country's space program still faced two primary challenges: insufficient funding and the lack of a centralized space agency. In the absence of a formal space agency, the DOST funded the National Space Development Program to set up the foundations of a future space agency. President
Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945), also known as Digong, Rody, and by the initials DU30 and PRRD, is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the chairperson ...
in February 2018 announced that a precursor to a space agency, the National Space Development Office, will be established. As of March 2018, there are seven pending bills in both the House of Representatives and the Senate seeking to establish the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA). In the meantime, the DOST has agreed with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, "to proceed with negotiations of an intergovernmental framework agreement on space cooperation that will include use of Russian rockets to launch Philippine payloads such as micro-and nano-satellites as well as the establishment of a receiving station for the Global Navigation Satellite System" (GLONASS), Russia's alternative to American Global Positioning System (GPS) In late January 2019, the Department of Science and Technology has said that the Philippines is already capable of founding its own space agency with a pending bill already passed in the House of Representatives and pending counterpart legislation already pending in the Senate. By this time since 2010, the science department has already spent (or $144 million) for space research and development, aided 5,500 scholars, trained more than 1,000 space science experts, and established 25 facilities in various parts of the Philippines. The Philippine Space Agency was established when the "''Philippine Space Act''" (Republic Act 11363) was signed into law by Pres. Duterte on 8 August 2019. The first head of Philippine Space Agency,
Joel Marciano Jr. Joel Joseph Sacro Marciano Jr. is a Filipino engineer, academic and the first and current Director General of the Philippine Space Agency, a government agency under the Office of the President in charge of the Philippines' national space program. ...
was appointed on December 5, 2019, by President Duterte. The agency is currently focused on developing additional micro and nano-satellites and has not discounted developing rocket launch capability in the long term. The satellite program of the DOST will also transition into the PhilSA's authority. Maya-2, a nanosatellite under the Birds-4 program, was successfully launched on February 21, 2021.


List of Philippine satellites


Spaceport

The Philippines does not have a spaceport. In January 2022, Senators Manny Pacquiao and Koko Pimentel met with representatives of
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
and discussed the possibility of setting up a launch pad in Mindanao due to its proximity to the
equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...
. Mati, Davao Oriental has been proposed by the Ateneo de Davao University as early as 2019 to be a potential site for a spaceport. PhilSa is still examining proposals for a launch site in Mati as of late 2021.


Space education

The
Department of Science and Technology Department of Science and Technology may refer to: *Department of Science and Technology (Australia), an Australian Government department between November 1980 and December 1984 * Department of Science and Technology (India) * Department of Science ...
–Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) launched the first Philippine Space Science Education Program (PESSAP) in 2004, to promote science and technology, particularly
space science Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...
, as a field of study to the Filipino youth. On October 5, 2017, high school students from St. Cecilia's College-Cebu, Inc. launched 3-feet solid propellant
Model rockets A model rocket are small rockets designed to reach low altitudes (e.g., for model) and be recovered by a variety of means. According to the United States National Association of Rocketry (NAR) Safety Code, model rockets are constructed of p ...
for the World Space Week 2017 celebration in Cebu City. The same team was awarded a research grant by the Department of Science and Technology - Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) in 2018 to design and develop the Tala Hybrid Rocket. The Tala Hybrid Rocket is approximately 10 feet (3 meters), 15 kilograms and is capable of deploying a can satellite to 4-5 kilometers. St. Cecilia’s College - Cebu, Inc. together with the support from DOST-PCIEERD, Local Government Unit of Mati, Davao Oriental, Department of Science and Technology - Davao Oriental conducted its first attempt at Mati Airport, Mati City, Davao Oriental on March 11, 2020. The rocket launch was scrubbed due to pressure loss in one of its tanks yet rescheduled for launch two days later. However, the team had to return back to Minglanilla, Cebu immediately because of the ongoing heightened restrictions of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) brought by the COVID-19 Pandemic. In 2022, the Tala Hybrid Rocket Team with the support from Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), Philippine Air Force through Air Force Research and Development Center, AFRDC, Department of Science and Technology - Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) renew the efforts to launch the Tala Hybrid Rocket and rescheduled it on 2023. The PHL-Microsat program offers a graduate program called Space Science and Tech Proliferation through Partnerships (Stepup). Student-researchers and science faculty from St. Cecilia's College - Cebu, Inc. in partnership with
Department of Science and Technology Department of Science and Technology may refer to: *Department of Science and Technology (Australia), an Australian Government department between November 1980 and December 1984 * Department of Science and Technology (India) * Department of Science ...
-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) successfully launched the first High-Altitude Balloon Life Support System "Karunungan" (HAB LSS Karunungan) in May 2018 at Minglanilla, Cebu, Philippines and floated above the
Armstrong Line The Armstrong limit or Armstrong's line is a measure of altitude above which atmospheric pressure is sufficiently low that water boils at the normal temperature of the human body. Exposure to pressure below this limit results in a rapid loss of ...
to simulate 'space like' conditions for future space flights.


Contemporary private ventures

In 2019, Orbital Exploration (OrbitX), a private firm was set-up which aims to research on the usage as
biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (E ...
like
algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
to propel space launch vehicles. The company also plans to develop its own "reusable" payload launch vehicle named "Haribon SLS-1".


Gallery

File:Ph4-062016-JBV 1.jpg File:Diwata-1 Turnover in Tsukuba, Japan 1.jpg File:Diwata-1 Microsatellite.jpg File:Diwata-2.png File:Diwata-2 Microsatellite.jpg File:Birds-2 in space (Iss056e130490).jpg File:Maya-1 Nanosatellite.jpg


See also

* Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) * National SPACE Development Program (NSDP) * Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) * Birds-2


References

{{Philippine space program Philippines