Last Minute News: IMECE Launch Delayed Due to Wind Barrier
SpaceX Delays Launch of Turkish IMECE Satellite Due to Weather Conditions
The launch operation of the IMECE satellite, developed with national resources by the Turkey Scientific and Technological Research Council (TUBITAK), has been postponed twice due to adverse weather conditions. The satellite, which was expected to be launched on Tuesday, will now be launched on Wednesday.
SpaceX, which is responsible for the operation of the Falcon 9 rocket that will carry the IMECE satellite into orbit, reported that the launch operation was postponed 28 seconds before the launch was scheduled to take place. In a tweet posted on Tuesday, SpaceX noted that the launch was pushed back due to adverse weather conditions.
Once launched, the IMECE satellite will be located in an orbit synchronised with the sun at an altitude of 680 kilometres. It will serve Turkey in many areas such as target identification, detection, natural disasters, agricultural applications during its design mission life of 5 years, and will be able to obtain images from anywhere in the world.
The satellite is equipped with the experience gained from previous Turkish satellites BİLSAT, RASAT, and Göktürk-2. It has an electro-optical satellite camera with sub-meter resolution, produced for the first time in Turkey, which was developed by TUBITAK UZAY and integrated into IMECE.
The outputs obtained from the IMECE project will form the building blocks of new satellites that Turkey will have in the future. With this project, Turkey aims to gain critical space technologies, human power, and knowledge in this field. The development of the IMECE satellite provides the potential to export systems with high added value.
