Armenia launched its first ever earth observation satellite into orbit on Wednesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that left Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The announcement of the launch was made by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a cabinet meeting on Thursday. He said the satellite launch was a join effort with Armenian state company Geocosmos and the the Spanish Satlantis company.
“We can’t overstate the significance of this. With this, Armenia is embarking into an era of space activities and we hope that our rich traditions in this area will be restored. I am speaking about the space scientific-production area which existed in Armenia for many years. In this context I’d like to stress that one of our priorities is the localization of space technologies in Armenia, as well as organizing the production of space equipment,” Pashinyan said.
According to the prime minister, by 2023 Armenia will have a satellite control center and downlink facility, which will render data receiving and transmission services for other satellite operators.
He said the images captured by the Armenian satellite will be used for various purposes, such as border surveillance.
Source: Asbarez