Road to Space
Kyrgyzstan is ready to launch its first-ever own satellite into orbit. The launch of the spacecraft is scheduled for October 1 from a site in the US state of California.
The first satellite created in this Central Asian country was presented by the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic — Minister of Water Resources, Agriculture and Processing Industry Erlist Akunbekov. According to him, the use of images and other data obtained from space will allow the agricultural sector to reach a qualitatively new level. Such information will help monitor approaching frosts or drought. In addition, specialists will be able to analyze the information to prepare an action plan to increase crop yields.
As the official specified, the satellite was manufactured by the "Kyrgyz Electronica" enterprise, which previously assembled computers and cash registers. It took Kyrgyz engineers 2.5 years to develop and produce the device.
Journalists were shown the technical parameters of the spacecraft. Its weight is 5 kilograms. The cost of the satellite is estimated at 10-12 million soms (about $130 thousand).
In his turn, the director of "Kyrgyz Electronica" Ilya Cherny noted that the satellite can be called multifunctional: in particular, it is equipped with high-resolution cameras, the images from which are urgently needed by the Ministry of Agriculture.
At the same time, the head of the enterprise admitted that the development cannot be considered entirely Kyrgyz, since most of the technologies used in its creation are Russian. If the satellite had to be made from scratch, it would have taken 10-15 years, Cherny explained.
Kyrgyzstan is not the first country in Central Asia to launch its own satellite. Recently, Uzbekistan marked a similar achievement. The launch of the spacecraft was carried out with the participation of Chinese partners. In August of this year, it was reported that a company from the PRC successfully launched the Samarkand-2028 hyperspectral satellite into space, the onboard system of which is equipped with an artificial intelligence-based module developed in Uzbekistan.
Kazakhstan is also preparing a new satellite. The government has allocated 10.4 billion tenge for the creation of KazSat-3R, which will replace the active KazSat-3. The service life of the current spacecraft expires in 2029. Nineteen telecom operators work through the KazSat system, serving more than two million television subscribers.