As planned, this morning, May 4, the first remote sensing satellite of Vietnam (VNREDSat-1) would be launched into orbit in the French Guyana Space Centre.
Accordingly, the Arianespace company (France), the contractor's performance satellite launch VNREDSat-1 project would launch the satellites into orbit at 9 am on May 4, 2013 (GMT).
However, the launch of the satellite was delayed because of bad weather.
Not only the launch of VNREDSat-1 of Vietnam, the launch of two other satellites Proba-V of the European Space Agency ESA and ESTCube-1 belonging to Finnish Meteorological Institute in partnership with Germany’s Space Center was delayed as well.
About one hour before the scheduled launch, SGGP reporter observed a live Arianespace program on the internet TV channel (www.arianespace.tv) with the image of VV02 Vega rocket ready on launch.
However, when the expected launch time came (9 pm this morning) there is no signal in the TV channel about 20 minutes.
Later, the Twiter page of Arianespace announced the news "VV02 Vega rocket launch has been postponed due to unfavorable winds in high atmosphere."
This event was later confirmed by the Universe Institute of Technology (the Academy of Science and Technology of Vietnam), the sponsor of the project of Vietnam Satellite observations of natural resources, environment and natural disasters (VNREDSat-1).
“The date for VNREDSat-1 satellite launch will be determined later”, it said.
VNREDSat-1 project was fabricated in 2009, with total investment of EUR 55.8 million in which part of the fund from the French Government's ODA and VND 64.8 billion contributed by Vietnamese side.
If VNREDSat-1 satellite is launched into space it will operate at an altitude of 670 km with a 98.1 degree angle.
After leaving the ground about 2 hours, the 120 kg VNREDSat-1 satellite will separate from VEGA rocket propulsion and turn itself into the working orbit.
Satellite VNREDSat-1 satellite is the first optical sensing of Vietnam with high resolution, panchromatic and multispectral images. Three prototypes are among the five UAVs that have been created by scientists at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology under the project entitled “Studies and manufacture of unmanned aerial vehicles for scientific research purposes.”
Once in operation, VNREDSat-1 is capable of delivering images at the scene quickly.
This contributes in helping experts with professional and synthetic updates data on the floods, forest fires, oil spills ... as well as other issues of a natural disaster.
The use of VNREDSat-1 satellite will also provide Vietnamese environment experts information, technologies and systems ... and contribute to the researching process, mining, aggregation.
Previously, Guyana space center and Arianespace company has successfully launched two telecommunications satellites Vinasat-1 and Vietnam's Vinasat-2 into orbit in 2008 and 2012.
