A new Danish satellite was launched into space, in order to test the monitoring of ships and aircraft in the Arctic region. This is a joint project between DTU, the Danish Ministry of Defence, and the company Gomspace.
The satellite Ulloriaq was launched into space on 2 February 2018 and will orbit around the Arctic approximately 540 km above the Earth to test the ability of the satellite to take pictures and catch signals from ships and aircrafts, among other tasks. The project will last until 2020, when it will be more clear whether this can contribute to this project by the Danish Armed Forces.
“In addition, the cooperation and the successful launch of the satellite are a perfect example of how—with the development of high-tech solutions—we can help the Armed Forces in the performance of, for example, public civilian tasks,” said Director of DTU Space, Kristian Pedersen.
In addition, the Armed Forces will evaluate the usefulness of this satellite system regarding the possibility of obtaining a better ‘situational picture’ of the Arctic region in the future.
“On board, there is an antenna for listening for signals from ships and another antenna for listening for aircraft as well as a camera for taking pictures in clear weather in the daytime. Much work has been done to coordinate frequencies with other countries which have satellites in orbit, to make it possible to operate the satellite and receive data in Denmark,” added Charlotte Wiin Havsteen, Head of the Defence Centre for Operational Oceanography.
The satellite and the systems on board, were launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China.