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With the launch of Razaksat due on Tuesday (21 April), Malaysian agencies are intensifying efforts to sell services from the satellite – whether data for GIS, or expertise in some area of satellite operations - to other other nations. Countries on the equator are special targets of the Malaysian campaign because of Razaksat's unusual orbit.

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Razaksat is the only current remote sensing satellite in an equatorial orbit. This means it comes over Malaysian territory on each orbit - about every 90 minutes. This gives the satellite operators the best chance of exploiting holes in the cloud cover.

Normal polar orbiting satellites might return to Malaysia only once in a fortnight, and then see nothing but cloud. As a result, it takes the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency years to generate images of some parts of the country using US or European satellites.

Razaksat operations will be carried out by engineers at Astronautic Technology’s ground station at Hicom-Glenmarie Industrial Park in Shah Alam. The Malaysian Remote Sensing ground station in Temerloh, Pahang and Ankasa’s ground station in Banting, Selangor are also in communication with the satellite. Ankasa is the Malaysian space agency.

The station at Shah Alam will receive and archive images for post-processing and distribution. The Razaksat system is a collaborative program between Astronautic Technology and Satrec Initiative Co. Ltd, South Korea.

Razaksat will be able to offer images of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and some African and South American countries.

'One can’t attribute data without ground truthing it in some way,' says Ground Data Solutions Sdn Bhd executive chair Datuk Nik Nasruddin Mahmood. He is the founder and former director of the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency, as well as the president of the Malaysian Remote Sensing Society.

'We need a bit more co-ordination among government sectors, the universities and the industry in Malaysia,' he says. 'A major problem is accessibility to data. The government can do more to facilitate that. The sources are there but not easily available to users and without addressing that, the technology cannot be made operational.

'Data has to be made available to the universities and industry when and where it is required. There is still a lot of bureaucracy and red tape on the pretext of public security and safety. Much of this is not necessary - those with high resolution technology outside Malaysia can easily access more information on the country than those inside,' he says.

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