September 9, 2003
Home grown Turkish to be launched this month

Though Turkey already has two orbiting satellites, providing communications services to the country and the wider region.

The first satellite designed by Turkish scientists will be blasted into space later this month, it was announced on Monday.

BILSAT-1, a surveillance satellite that will gather information about the environment, will be launched atop a Russian rocket on September 26 from Plesetsk in north eastern Russia.
The equipment package for the satellite was designed by Turkish engineers, working with British experts, with the satellite’s chassis being British built.
“For the first time, we didn’t just order a satellite but we worked directly on the project and produced its equipment,” Uur Murat Lelolu, a co-ordinator at the Turkish Institute for Electronic Research and Scientific Technology (BILTEN) said.
The 129 kilogram satellite, built at a cost of $14 million, will be orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 686 kilometres, collecting data to be used for agricultural purposes, the management of natural catastrophes and urbanisation issues.

(NTVMSNBC)