MalaysiaGIS.com

LANGKAWI, Fri: Images recorded by the national remote sensing satellite, RazakSAT, which orbited the earth along the equator will be made available to users, such as government agencies and bodies, beginning next year, said Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Fadillah Yusof.

He said the images recorded by the satellite were most important and they could be utilised for various applications such as precision agriculture, landscape mapping, disaster prevention, road network and urban planning.

"The RazakSAT satellite is now operating smoothly after its launch on July 14. The configuration process is still going on to sharpen the images produced," he said when met after launching the images recorded by RazakSAT. The event was being held in conjunction with the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (Lima) 2009.

Fadillah said the images recorded by the RazakSAT satellite could also be used by the military to monitor activities along the country's border because the RazakSAT could record four or five images each day.

There were also countries located along the equator that were interested to obtain the images recorded by the satellite, he said.

The RazakSAT satellite is the world's first remote sensing satellite launched at the Near Equator Orbit (NEqO).

The first image recorded by the satellite was on July 20 at Koh Samui, Thailand. About 200 images had been recorded by the satellite at several locations in Malaysia between September and November.

RazakSAT, developed by Astronautic Technology (M) Sdn Bhd (ATSB), a pioneer company in Malaysia's satellite development, was launched on July 14 this year at the Marshall Islands Republic. -- BERNAMA