Bangladesh Satellite Company Limited (BSCL) is planning its own earth observation satellite system to monitor crop health, estimate yields and track drought and floods from space. Together with a second project for round-the-clock surveillance of vessels in the Bay of Bengal, it plans to launch six satellites in all.
The problem is dependence. BSCL says Bangladesh now relies on foreign satellites for urgent data and imagery, which is expensive, not always available at once in an emergency, and risks exposing information about sensitive areas.
The proposed satellite would carry two technologies: optical sensors that use sunlight to take daytime images, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which uses its own radar signal and can produce clear images through cloud, rain and bad weather. In agriculture it would monitor crop health, estimate yields and detect drought; in fisheries and water management it would map inland water bodies and track floods; and for the environment it would detect deforestation, assess tree planting and watch river erosion.
For the sea, a constellation of four low earth orbit (LEO) satellites is being considered to pick up vessels' automatic identification system (AIS) signals and relay them to a central data centre. Each satellite would circle the Earth in 90 to 92 minutes and spend 11 to 12 minutes over Bangladesh, so with four, one would pass overhead every 10 to 12 minutes. Every vessel would have a digital identity giving its name, position, speed and heading, and an SOS from a boat in distress would reach the command centre and nearby vessels at once.
BSCL managing director and CEO Dr Muhammad Imadur Rahman told Desh Rupantor the projects are meant to be in place before Bangladesh Satellite-1, launched in 2018, reaches the end of its life, with the AIS satellites first and the earth observation satellite after. Besides fisheries, farming and the environment, he said, they would serve urban planning, land management, coastal and disaster management. The AIS project is still at an early stage, with feasibility, technical design, financing and tendering under discussion.
Citing the World Economic Forum, the report says earth observation data will create more than $700 billion of economic opportunity worldwide by 2030, and a national satellite would save foreign currency now spent buying data abroad.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech / Wikimedia Commons (public domain) (illustration: an artist's concept of a radar satellite)
Source: Desh Rupantor
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