İMECE satellite launch operation postponed

It was reported that the launch operation of İMECE, Turkey’s first domestic and national observation satellite with sub-meter resolution, has been postponed. In a statement made on TÜBİTAK’s Twitter account, it was conveyed that SpaceX, which is responsible for the operation of the Falcon 9 rocket that will carry the İMECE satellite into orbit, officially announced that it is not possible to launch today. The statement noted that the exact date and time of the launch, which is currently postponed by one day, will be announced later. On the other hand, in a post made on SpaceX’s Twitter account, it was stated that the teams are monitoring the weather conditions. İMECE Satellite was sent off to Vandenberg Space Forces Base in the USA on February 21. Developed within the scope of the project carried out with the support of the Presidency of Strategy and Budget and TÜBİTAK 1007 program, with the coordination of the Ministry of National Defense and the Presidency of Defense Industries, İMECE Satellite will be included in the Air Forces Command inventory after its launch and the completion of its in-orbit tests. With the commencement of İMECE, Turkey will have added space history to an electro-optic satellite camera developed with domestic and national resources with sub-meter resolution for the first time. İMECE, which will meet Turkey's need for high-resolution satellite images, will operate in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 680 kilometers. The satellite, which can capture images from all over the world without geographical restrictions, will serve Turkey in many areas such as target detection and diagnosis, natural disasters, mapping, and agricultural applications. Weighing approximately 700 kilograms, İMECE measures 2 meters x 3.1 meters. İMECE can capture an area of 1000 kilometers long and 16.73 kilometers wide in a single shot, and can download the images it captures to the ground station with a gross data rate of 320 megabytes/second.